a crucial point in ASEAN’s history. Grasping the challenges, the association has to deal with, as the present ASEAN chairman Vietnam offers its ASEAN partners, as well the external powers, an agenda of cooperation with a clear consolidating component.
The novelty of the study stems from a cutting-edge research of Vietnam’s likely policy directions as the present ASEAN chairman, which is based on an analytical interlink between the changes of the international milieu in Southeast Asia between 2010 and 2020, ASEAN’s remedial measures and their Vietnam perspective. In line with this analytical focus, a deep and nuanced assessment of the SRV’s priorities and policy directions as the ASEAN’s 2020 chairmanship is made. Findings on this set of issues add the practical relevance of the study and make it academically unique.
Keywords: Vietnam, ASEAN, South East Asia, Asia Pacific, Indo-Pacific, South China Sea, security, cooperation.
Introduction
The effective chairmanship in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is considered by the leadership of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) as one of the main foreign policy tasks for 2020. The midterm review of the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 and the 25th anniversary of Vietnam’s accession to the Association add urgency to this priority. The reputation aspect also matters – the election of Hanoi to the post of the nonpermanent member of the UN Security Council for 2020-2021 and the SRV’s chairmanship in ASEAN are convincing indicators of an increased role of the state on the regional and the global arena. To examine the ASEAN direction of Vietnam’s policy between the previous (in 2010) and the on-going SRV’s chairmanship in ASEAN becomes a timely and relevant exercise.
The chapter starts from a review of international context in Southeast Asia between 2010 and 2020. Then it turns to examining Vietnam’s contribution to ASEAN’s policy to cope with the emerging challenges. The priorities of Vietnam’s on-going ASEAN chairmanship are considered through the prism of these developments. The conclusion summarizes the main findings of the study.
A Decade of Changes
Between two Vietnam’s chairmanships, Southeast Asia has seen profound international changes. In 2010, the region and the world had barely recovered from the global financial crisis. ASEAN’s policy demonstrated that in a critical situation, the ten states prefer to act separately rather than collectively47. This, in turn, decreased ASEAN’s ambitions to solidify its status of the driving force of the Asia-Pacific. From the Vietnam perspective, a task to confirm the validity of the Association’s ambitions, as well as to provide ASEAN with a new reputational value, was pressing. On the whole, that task was fulfilled. The main results of Vietnam’s chairmanship included the expansion of the East Asia Summit through the accession of Russia and the United States and the launch of the ADMM Plus format.
Vietnam’s 2010 chairmanship saw Washington’s involvement in the South China Sea issue, including the Sino-American polemics at the ASEAN Regional Forum48. These moves were welcomed by Vietnam and a number of ASEAN states seeking the US’ support in opposing the PRC49.
Significant progress has been achieved in relations between ASEAN and its extra-regional partners. Specifically, the involvement of non-ASEAN countries in the regional affairs has radically changed – some of them actually started to set the tone for the evolution in Southeast Asia. China launched the Belt and Road Initiative, which aims to provide large-scale financial injections into ASEAN countries focusing on, but not limited to, the development of their infrastructure. Japan responded by the “Partnership for Quality Infrastructure” (hinting at the “poor-quality” Chinese), further politicizing economic cooperation. The US Republican Administration brought a second wind to the Quadrilateral Defense Cooperation (Quad) (USA, Japan, India, Australia) and introduced the “Indo-Pacific” narrative. Simultaneously, Washington created the “Blue Dot Network”, with the focus upon the infrastructure development. Lastly but importantly, extra-regional actors intensified their polities, from both substantial and institutional perspective, in the Mekong River basin.
As for the South China Sea, the assertiveness of Beijing in the maritime area did not weaken. The issue is perceived as one of the most important regional security challenges, while the international pressure on the PRC over it also increased radically.
In the economic sphere, a trend toward protectionism and a wider use of non-market regulatory methods has become widespread in the international politics. This could not but alert ASEAN, because the success of the export-oriented economies of its member states countries crucially depends on the free access to the external markets.
In general, the involvement of non-ASEAN countries in Southeast Asian affairs has increased while the launch of competing mega-projects has become a disturbing development for the Association. The initiatives of the great powers objectively began to “outweigh” ASEAN projects. The aftereffect is a decrease in the importance of ASEAN dialogue platforms, undermining ASEAN’s neutrality and central role in the Asia-Pacific multilateral cooperation. Lastly but importantly, understanding the complexity of intra-ASEAN processes, some non-regional players increasingly began to develop cooperation with individual ASEAN member states rather than with ASEAN as an international actor, which further intensified downward trends in the association.
At these complicated crossroads, ASEAN is forced to act very carefully. Though ASEAN was virtually unable to develop an effective approach that could consolidate the interests of great powers, it has not lost the role of a central negotiating platform in the region. In the context of the changes that have taken place over the past decade, this is an achievement in itself. And although the Association was unable to elaborate on instrumental links between its prospective plans and the Belt and Road Initiative, it was able to formulate its Indo-Pacific Vision50, which is also notable success.
In the economic sphere, due to the different level of economic development of its member countries, ASEAN could not ensure completely free movement of goods, services and capital in Southeast Asia. At the same time, the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community has spurred the launch of specific projects to strengthen infrastructure interconnectivity.
These factors suggest that the association has been relatively successful in coping with the decade-long challenges and associated risks which have been steadily rising. At this juncture, the role of chairmanship of a specific country, in terms of both its priorities and possibilities to translate them into reality, comes to the fore.
The Vietnam Perspective
Since 2010, Vietnam has been one of the most active ASEAN member countries in promoting the maintenance of ASEAN’s internal solidarity, regional resilience, common values, standards of conduct, as well as strengthening its central role in the Asia-Pacific multilateralism.
Beside the already discussed expansion of the EAS and the launch of ADMM Plus, Hanoi continued to engage non-regional partners in the dialogue in order to keep the Southeast Asian security challenges manageable. For example, Vietnam promoted ASEAN joint maritime drills with China in 2018 and with the United States in 2019. In the same strain, Hanoi is likely to make efforts to conduct similar drills with Russia in the year of its chairmanship51.
On the South China Sea issue, Vietnam’s policy aimed to achieve a consensus within ASEAN, as well as between ASEAN and its extra-regional partners. As a result, in May 2014, the foreign ministers of ASEAN issued a separate Statement on the South China Sea, for the first time since 199252.
The results of Vietnam’s involvement in the economic regionalism are dubious. In line with creating a network
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