Countries are like people. They have friends, some closer than others.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN, for one, is a membership club of friends and neighbors. It’s 57 years old, a GenXer, young compared to NATO and the UN, both founded after World War 2.
ASEAN has grown through the years, from five founding members — Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore — to 10, with one waiting in the wings to come in, Timor Leste.
I’ve been thinking a lot about ASEAN lately and how we fit into this organization. It’s because, as friends and neighbors, they have not really been openly supportive of our standing up to China’s bullying in the West Philippine Sea.
They were quiet when the most violent skirmish took place between the China Coast Guard and our soldiers during a routine resupply mission to Ayungin Shoal. The physical assault was so brazen that it jolted many not only in the Philippines but in other countries as well—perhaps except in ASEAN.
You could feel their absence because the statements of support poured in from friends outside of Southeast Asia: Japan, Australia, the US, the European Union, Netherlands, Germany, New Zealand, United Kingdom, South Korea, Finland and France.
Sure, ASEAN comes out with broad statements during its foreign ministers’ meetings as well as leaders’ summits upholding a rules-based international order and calling for peace and stability in the South China Sea. But when it comes to specific incidents, the silence is piercing.
Recently, two China Air Force planes dropped flares on the path of a Philippine Air Force plane, which was on a routine patrol over Scarborough Shoal. Last week, near Escoda Shoal, China Coast Guard ships rammed two Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) vessels en route to Lawak and Patag Islands to provide supplies to PCG personnel stationed there.
Foreign Secretary Enrique Manalo explained the lack of robust support from ASEAN this way: “…[ASEAN is] supportive of UNCLOS [United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea] and international law. At the moment, that’s where ASEAN will go….we would certainly like stronger language but there are 10 members in ASEAN.” As we know, decision-making is by consensus.
I asked a friend from a South China Sea claimant country why they choose to keep quiet when China harasses their fishermen and their oil exploration and drilling activities. “We’re not like you,” she said. “We don’t have a powerful ally like the US behind us.” (The Philippines is the only treaty ally of the US in Southeast Asia.)
I was surprised to hear this. But what is known is that this claimant country has consistently put a lid on China’s intimidation in the South China Sea as part of its policy not to rile up China. They opt to protest against China quietly.
For Herman Kraft, politician science professor at the University of the Philippines, what makes the Philippines an outlier is our relations with China. Many in ASEAN have substantial economic engagements with China — from trade to loans to investments — even before the rolling out of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). While China is the Philippines’ top trading partner, we are a latecomer to the BRI.
China funded huge railway projects in Indonesia and Malaysia. But none in the Philippines. The Marcos government withdrew our country’s loan applications for mega-railway projects when China did not respond within the timeline that the Philippines set.
Laos and Cambodia are big recipients of loans from China. Here, only three infrastructure projects have been funded by China: Kaliwa Dam, the Chico River irrigation project, and the bridge connecting Davao to Samal.
Thus, in the region, we’re not that economically tied up to China.
In terms of investments, China was not in our roster of top investors in 2023. The Board of Investments said “significant investments [came] from Germany, followed by the Netherlands, Singapore, Japan, and the United Kingdom.”
The transparency policy of the Philippines, which shames China by publicizing its harassment of our vessels and fishermen, also stands out in ASEAN. Other claimant countries do not rock the boat, Kraft pointed out in our interview. You can watch the interview here.
On their own, some members of ASEAN have shown benign support by “positively acknowledging” the 2016 arbitral ruling junking China’s nine-dash-line claim on the South China Sea. These are Vietnam, Singapore, Myanmar, Indonesia and Malaysia. The Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative, which has been tracking support for the arbitral ruling, said that these countries stopped “short of calling for the parties to abide by it.”
It is interesting to read commentaries from academics in Indonesia urging ASEAN to do more when it comes to the South China Sea. Indonesia is not a claimant country but it has had skirmishes with China in the Natuna Islands which fall within its exclusive economic zone. Their experiences with China may partly be the reason that some Indonesians have empathy for the Philippines.
Trystanto Sanjaya of the Rennes School of Business wrote: “A strong statement from ASEAN’s foreign ministers expressing their support for the Philippines and their disapproval of China’s actions would send a clear message to Beijing and other great powers that ASEAN will not tolerate violations of its norms.”
“ASEAN must make it clear on what it would consider to be off limits in the South China Sea,” Aristyo Rizka Darmawan of the Universitas Indonesia wrote. “ASEAN needs to be prepared not only to prevent conflict but also to respond to it.”
Yulius Hermawan of the Parahyangan Catholic University in Bandung was quoted as saying that “[ASEAN leaders] have kept silent, even when their fellow ASEAN members raised their open harsh protests against China’s rude action in their territories.”
From our end, it is clear that the Philippines has to do more. As Manalo has said, “We have to try to come up with language or actions that are acceptable to all.”
Let me know what you think. You can email me at marites.vitug@rappler.com.
