ASEAN’s Role In Multipolarity

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov held his second meeting with his US counterpart Marco Rubio in Kuala Lumpur on the sidelines of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Summit in early July. There were no tangible outcomes, but it’s nonetheless important that their dialogue continues. Much more interesting for many was how these two top diplomats came together at an ASEAN event, which reinforces the notion that this group is playing a greater role in the global systemic transition to multipolarity.

ASEAN has been around for a little more than half a century after Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand agreed to comprehensively strengthen cooperation in 1967. Several rounds of expansion resulted in ASEAN incorporating the whole of Southeast Asia with the exception of Timor-Leste. These were completed by the turn of the century in 1999 with Cambodia’s inclusion. ASEAN has since figured prominently on international observers’ radar due to its political and economic successes.

Regarding the first, members are on good terms with each other despite their asymmetries, and ASEAN has taken the lead in trying to diplomatically resolve the long-running conflict in member state Myanmar. As for the second, ASEAN has transformed Southeast Asia into a center of economic growth, which has been aided by its free trade deals with China, India, Japan, and South Korea. Both accomplishments are impressive since regional integration blocs sometimes fail to achieve anything significant at all.

Geographic factors have greatly contributed to ASEAN’s successes. The bloc is located at the confluence of the Indian and Pacific Oceans, thus making it an optimal place for establishing production facilities that can in turn more easily export to the rest of Asia than those in the Americas or Europe for example. Member states know that intra-organizational disputes could ruin these benefits for all of them and that’s a major reason why they remain committed to political resolutions whenever they arise.

The same unity of purpose can’t be said for their divergent policies towards China, the US, and the Sino-US rivalry, however. Although China is their free trade partner, some members are embroiled in maritime disputes with it, which is the pretext upon which the US expanded its military ties with Vietnam and especially the Philippines. It’s also relevant that the Myanmar Conflict has become an incipient Sino-US proxy war driven in part by the US’ interest in severing China’s overland access to the Indian Ocean.

China and Russia have warned about the military, political, and strategic consequences of these developments, but ASEAN members still retain the right to formulate their foreign and military policies however they’d like. The US is exploiting that to the hilt by making closer security cooperation with ASEAN members a centerpiece of its envisaged “Pivot (back) to Asia” for more robustly containing China. In fact, the Philippines can now be described as a member of AUKUS+, which is a nascent Asian NATO.

Apart from its founding Australian, UK, and US members, this includes the Philippines, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Their unofficial goal is to contain China, to which end each engages with the US on relevant security matters, but the US’ ultimate objective is to create a regional military network that it can “Lead From Behind” for containing China by proxy. It’s a work in progress, but AUKUS+’s expansion into ASEAN via the Philippines turns the bloc into a theater of rivalry in the New Cold War.

To make everything more complicated, not only is China predictably ASEAN’s largest trading partner, but ASEAN has been China’s largest trading partner since 2020. US-exacerbated differences between the Philippines and China could therefore potentially have mutually detrimental consequences if cooler heads don’t prevail and one side decides to weaponize the aforesaid relations as leverage. That hasn’t yet happened, and they actually plan to upgrade their free trade deal in fall, but it’s still possible.

While ASEAN is first of all known for its global economic significance and then as an emerging theater of rivalry in the New Cold War as was explained in the preceding paragraphs, the bloc as a whole and its member states are also promising partners for Russia. Vietnam is Russia’s decades-old strategic partner, which contemporaneously manifests itself through close military-technical cooperation and Vietnam’s free trade deal with the Eurasian Economic Union. President Putin also visited Vietnam last summer.

Laos is another decades-old strategic partner of Russia’s, but its landlocked nature and much smaller size – both in terms of population and economy – led to a reduced importance in the Kremlin’s regional planning. Even so, it’s interesting that Ukraine’s GUR claimed in early July that Russia requested that Laos send sappers to Kursk. Everything that Kiev says must be treated with suspicion, but this particular report isn’t unbelievable due to their close military-technical ties and Laos’ interest in more foreign aid.

In recent years, Russia has also cultivated closer ties with Thailand, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Indonesia. A military cooperation agreement was signed with Thailand in 2017, which is a popular Russian tourist destination, and Thailand is also exploring a free trade deal with the Eurasian Economic Union. Nevertheless, apart from Vietnam, Russia’s ties with Myanmar are the most promising among all the Greater Mekong Subregion (“mainland ASEAN”) countries.

Russian arms, including Su-30 combat jets, have been integral in helping the military-led government in its campaign against the “Three Brotherhood Alliance” rebel front. It’s suspected that the US encouraged the formation of this umbrella organization in order to pose a greater challenge to the Tatmadaw, which refers to Myanmar’s armed forces. To be sure, they’ve become a formidable adversary since their “1023” offensive in October 2023, but the Tatmadaw has managed to hang on with Russian support.

Russian interests in Myanmar aren’t just to oppose another US regime change plot on principle, but to open new markets (first for its declining arms exports and secondly for real-sector ones), enter into a strategic resource (offshore energy and inland minerals) partnership, and expand its regional presence. For reasons of geography, history, and demography, Myanmar can be described as a hybrid South Asian-Southeast Asian state, thus making it a trans-regional pivot state with enormous strategic importance.

This partially accounts for why the latest round of its long-running conflict has become an incipient Sino-US proxy war. Pressure from both – regime change subversion from the US and the scenario of becoming more dependent on China (which is unpopular in society) – inspired Myanmar to consider closer relations with Russia as a way of alleviating this. Russian arms help counteract the US’ regime change subversion while the economic dimension of their strategic partnership balances Chinese influence.

Through these military-economic means, Russia has become an important player in the Myanmar Conflict, without whose support the Tatmadaw might have already lost. Much less openly, Russia is also a player in the South China Sea disputes through its military ties with Vietnam but also the Philippines, the latter of which most observers aren’t aware of. The Philippines became the first country to purchase the jointly produced Russian-Indian BrahMos supersonic missiles in early 2024.

These arms can only realistically be used against China in a hot war over their maritime claims, though Russia’s intent in authorizing this sale wasn’t to threaten its top strategic partner, but to ideally help maintain the regional military balance in the hopes of encouraging a political solution to their dispute. It might not succeed but it’s nonetheless a noble effort. This same logic of “military diplomacy” applies to Russia’s interest in exporting BrahMos missiles to other Southeast Asian states like Vietnam.

Russia’s military-technical cooperation with Vietnam and Myanmar is closer than with any other ASEAN countries, but that which it seeks to cultivate with Indonesia could surpass this in the best-case scenario. Defense and security talks have intensified under new President Prabowo Subianto, who used to serve as Defense Minister and most recently visited Moscow in June for talks with Putin. Like some of the other countries that have already been mentioned, Indonesia is also looking to alleviate Sino-US pressure.

To that end, its leadership identified Russia as their priority third partner, which explains the groundswell of mutual interest in reviving their Soviet-era strategic partnership during the first half of the Old Cold War. One of Russia’s most prestigious think tanks, the Valdai Club (whose annual meeting is traditionally attended by Putin), has taken the lead in this respect. The West feels threatened by this, however, which is why fake news began to circulate earlier this year alleging that Russia wants an airbase in Indonesia.

The purpose was to pressure Indonesia into distancing itself from Russia, but Prabowo defied them by visiting Moscow shortly after as Putin’s guest of honor at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. Observers should also remember that Indonesia became a full-fledged BRICS member earlier this year, which Prabowo thanked Putin for facilitating. This will lead to Indonesia, and ASEAN more broadly, playing a greater role in the global economy, global governance, and thus the global systemic transition.

Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam became official BRICS partners last year, which shows that this association appreciates the role that ASEAN countries play in advancing its shared goals. The trend is therefore that ASEAN as a whole is diversifying its foreign partnerships with a focus on BRICS, Russia, and also India, which altogether aims to bolster their Sino-US balancing acts. The Philippines is the most pro-US and anti-Chinese country in ASEAN by far, but even that country is working with Russia and India too.

ASEAN’s role in multipolarity is therefore poised to become more important as its economic potential continues to increase, its range of partners expands, and Sino-US competition in Southeast Asia heats up. Some fractures have already emerged among its members with respect to China, but Sino-ASEAN ties in general remain strong. Likewise, the US’ closer military cooperation with the Philippines has raised eyebrows among some fellow members, but this hasn’t led to irreconcilable divisions within the bloc.

Looking forward, ASEAN will likely remain intact even as some members like the Philippines and Myanmar proceed along radically divergent paths. Leading economies like Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Malaysia, all of which have official ties with BRICS, should help ensure that this is the case. So long as the incipient Sino-US proxy war in Myanmar doesn’t spiral out of control and there’s no hot war in the South China Sea, neither of which can be taken for granted, ASEAN’s global role will continue to grow.