Insight: Indonesia should address territorial disputes in ASEAN

By Rizal Sukma

Thursday, 10 February 2011

The Jakarta Post 

Analysts and policymakers, both inside and outside Southeast Asia, have long warned that territorial disputes could undermine stability in the region. Indeed, the list of such problems in Southeast Asia is, unfortunately, rather long. At the bilateral level, the relationship among some members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has often been marked by tensions due to overlapping territorial and border claims. At the regional level, there are still unresolved problems of overlapping claims in the South China Sea between some ASEAN countries and China.

For years, ASEAN has been able to “manage” this problem, so that it would not translate into armed conflicts between member states. ASEAN has been able to put aside territorial disputes — or, as some might say, to sweep the problems under the carpet — and focus on building and fostering the habits of dialogue and cooperation. Through this process, ASEAN expects that institutionalized interaction among member states would produce “restraining effects” on the use of force to settle differences.

And, in most cases, past experience suggests that ASEAN did have such “restraining effects” on its members.

However, recent armed clashes between Thailand and Cambodia should prompt ASEAN to revisit such logic. While what has happened between these two ASEAN members can still be categorized as skirmishes, ASEAN can no longer take for granted that territorial disputes among member states would not turn into armed conflicts. It is absurd, for example, to dismiss this problem as the result of the lack of institutionalized interactions between an old member (Thailand) and a new one (Cambodia). It is also absurd to argue that such skirmishes would soon disappear as the two countries become more intertwined within a web of ASEAN’s multi-layered and multi-tracked interactions and cooperation.

The danger posed by the problem of territorial disputes has nothing to do with the extent and depth of interaction within a regional institution. Even when one looks at the relationship between two original founding members of ASEAN — Indonesia and Malaysia — territorial disputes often prove to be an emotionally-charged problem. Indonesia and Malaysia have been engaged in “diplomatic skirmishes” over the past three years due to territorial and border problems. This is all a product of the sensitive nature of the central issue involved: sovereignty.

If this problem continues, it will undermine not only the credibility of ASEAN, but also regional stability. ASEAN needs to find ways to address territorial disputes within its own house. In this regard, Indonesia should take a proactive role toward that direction for an obvious reason. Indonesia is the 2011 ASEAN
chair, and the clash between Thailand and Cambodia poses a challenge to Indonesia’s chairmanship and leadership.

The clash clearly poses a challenge to Indonesia’s chairmanship agenda. Under its chairmanship, Indonesia wants ASEAN to accelerate the implementation of the three pillars of the ASEAN Community so that ASEAN would become more consolidated by 2015.

Indonesia also wants to see ASEAN maintain its diplomatic centrality by shaping the emerging regional architecture in East Asia. Indonesia has made it clear that under its chairmanship it wants to lay a strong foundation for ASEAN — as a collective entity — to play a meaningful role in the global community of nations after 2015. Armed conflict between Thailand and Cambodia, and indeed any other territorial disputes among fellow members, clearly complicates such an agenda.

Indonesia’s decision to chair ASEAN this year, through a swap with Brunei, is meant to demonstrate to other ASEAN members that Jakarta, despite its rising international profile, still highly values ASEAN in its foreign policy.

Therefore, under its chairmanship, it expects other ASEAN members to also show the same passion for ASEAN. It expects other ASEAN members to respect the value and utility of ASEAN, and that should include the readiness of anyone to prioritize the ASEAN mechanism — bilateral or regional — to resolve differences.

Yet, it is disheartening to see that neither Thailand nor Cambodia seem to be convinced that ASEAN could be useful for helping them resolve the bilateral dispute. Cambodia, for example, is too quick to assert that “bilateral discussion is at impasse” and therefore only the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and UN secretary-general can address the problem. Thailand, on the other hand, insists that the problem should be resolved bilaterally.

Neither Thailand nor Cambodia seems to think that in between bilateral and international options
there is still an ASEAN option. In fact, the position of Thailand and Cambodia suggests that there is still the lack, if not the absence, of trust in ASEAN’s own conflict resolution mechanism.

Therefore, Indonesia needs to bring this sad reality to the ASEAN table. It should urge ASEAN to review its entire approach to conflict resolution. Otherwise, what is ASEAN good for if it cannot use its own mechanism to address its own problems?

The writer is the executive director of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Jakarta.