Page 41 - AEI Insights 2018 Vol 4 Issue 1

Azman and Kumar, 2018

ASEAN individual member-states’ principled-pragmatism approach to SCS.

In studying the role of ASEAN and its principled-pragmatism approach in SCS conflict, it is
highly imperative for scholars to first analyse the foreign policy for each member-state. It is
because although ASEAN has gained international attention as a single regional group, the
nature and durability of ASEAN security framework reveals that the Association remains
essentially a product of state-centric decision making. It means that the state-centric approach
embedded in ASEAN normative security appears to address the multifaceted interests of the
ten individual governments, underlying several factors like geopolitical position and domestic
priority. All these factors should be considered to explain why ASEAN principled-pragmatism
approach in the troubled water might pose a distinct or new interpretation of the South China
Sea realities.

The first level of ASEAN's principled-pragmatism would expect a ‘Low cost-High benefit'
from the SCS conflict, of which the particular ASEAN countries pose similarities in terms of
with not having any claims in the territorial dispute and enjoy a good security and economic
relationship with China. The countries that might fit in this description are Cambodia, Laos
and Myanmar primarily due to their high political, economic and military engagement and the
close geographical location with China where these countries undertook massive projects like
the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation. In this case, the growth of China's relative capabilities and
its culture of weak law enforcement is favourable to the countries, which is why their foreign
policy are often ‘neutral' pertaining to SCS to mitigate all forms of risks that might arise and
negatively impact their bilateral relations (Kuik 2016:505). Therefore, these countries focus on
return-maximising regarding positive economic expectation and with little preparation for risk
contingency in relation to China's assertiveness in SCS.

Taking Cambodia as the example, the country disagrees with Vietnam over the usage of
strongly worded joint-statement pertaining the South China Sea dispute. Looking at the issue
from the Cambodian shoes, it is both principled and pragmatic because first, it is a neutral
entity with no expected gain from the territorial conflict. Thus, it is highly important for
Cambodia to prevent any actions that can make the situation even tenser or to the extent of war.
As what Prime Minister Hun Sen indicated before, "the South China Sea is not an issue between
ASEAN and China" (Parameswaran, 2015). The idea here is that the SCS dispute should not
complicate ASEAN-China relations as there are bounty areas of cooperation that both sides
can fundamentally benefit from such as in trade, investment, education, tourism and joint
efforts in fighting against non-traditional security issues.

Second, Cambodia is also using its right to have a different political view under the consensus
based setting. During the recent AMM meeting for instance, Cambodian Foreign Minister Prak
Sokhonn equates the joint-statement regarding the SCS dispute as "making a palatable
ASEAN-based soup with each country would like to add their own ‘ingredients' (Dara, 2017).
In this context, rather than letting the broth spoil by listening to all, it is also principled
pragmatic for all parties to take the middle road and take a step back. It should be noted that
ASEAN member-state, including the five founding countries, has never signed up to the
ASEAN's membership thinking that it would act as a dispute-settlement mechanism. All the
past territorial disputes in the region were resolved through bilateral mechanisms and
subsequently the International Court of Justice. In this sense, the best role that ASEAN could
fulfil is to be a dispute-avoidance mechanism in the SCS dispute.

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