The ASEAN Regional Forum: Maintaining the Regional Idea in Southeast Asia

Regional security arrangements can make a number of contributions to peace and stability. For some, the primary roles concentrate on collective defence or conflict management – normally understood to include conflict prevention, conflict mitigation, and conflict resolution – that are pursued within or even outside the geographical boundaries of the arrangement’s participants. For others, the focus is on confidence and trust building in the first instance. In the Asia-Pacific region, various reasons militated against the establishment of an organization modelled on NATO (Hemmer and Katzenstein 2002, Duffield 2001) and no pan-regional security arrangement has as yet been explicitly charged with conflict management as has been the case in Europe (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, OSCE) or, more recently, Africa (African Union). Instead, when the Cold War ended, the Asia-Pacific embraced against a backdrop of considerable strategic uncertainty what Michael Leifer termed the ‘extension of ASEAN’s model of security’ (Leifer 1996). This involved in 1994 the establishment of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) as a forum for the discussion of regional security issues. Organizationally linked to the annual ministerial meetings of the states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the ARF built on ASEAN’s collective experience of regular political-security dialogue and its members’ commitment to a canon of norms (the so-called ‘ASEAN way’) for the purpose of mutual reassurance. The ARF has proved to be a rather unique security forum. First, although it is still generally understood as a ‘process’ rather than as an institution, security dialogue and cooperation pursued under its auspices have assumed clearly identifiable patterns. In effect, both have to some extent become regularized and thus institutionalized. Yet the ARF does not have its own secretariat and participants still rely for active administrative support on the ARF Unit (which was established only in 2004) located within the ASEAN Secretariat. Second, embracing 27 participants at present,1 the ARF is the only regional forum that brings together all the world’s key powers: the United States, China, Japan, Russia, India, and the European Union. Notably, it is also the only regionally structured security dialogue that is at least nominally led by a group of small and middlepowers composed of the ASEAN member states. In the official language, ASEAN remains the ‘primary driving force’ of the ARF. Third, there is probably no other multilateral regional security framework that, at least as regards the Asia-Pacific, has been able to divide opinion in quite the same way. Indeed, among commentators the ARF generated almost from the very beginning much headshaking or hunching of shoulders in mostly quiet, but sometimes also vociferous frustration. Criticisms and concerns with respect to the ARF have essentially been revolving in particular around: (1) its role and effectiveness in adequately addressing shifts in the regional balance of power, particularly China’s rise; (2) the leadership role of ASEAN within the ARF at the expense of greater influence on the part of non-ASEAN countries, such as Australia, Japan, and the United States; (3) the difficulties in moving the ARF’s focus unambiguously beyond confidence building to preventive diplomacy, as well as its failure in embracing practical security cooperation; and, linked to this, (4) the perceived irrelevance of the ARF as a ‘talk shop’, including its apparent limitations that prevent the Forum from engaging in conflict and particularly crisis management. For Jones and Smith, for example, it is the focus on confidence building that has implied the ARF’s practical near-irrelevance in dealing with a vast array of security issues, not least bilateral disputes and conflicts (Jones and Smith 2006: 158-9). The ARF’s detractors can also point to the increasing availability of bilateral or other regional arrangements within the wider Asia-Pacific security architecture some of which would appear to be well suited for the purpose of advancing shared security interests and objectives, including practical responses.2

Conclusions 1. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) contributes to U.S. political, economic, and security interests in the Asia-Pacific region. As Asia's power increases relative to other regions of the world, the U.S. stake in ASEAN's continued success grows. Yet, U.S. engagement in the region, relative to its activity in Northeast Asia, remains limited. 2. Current plans for the expansion of ASEAN from 7 to 10 members may put the organization at odds with U.S. policy in the region. Expansion may also threaten the Association's stability since new members may have significantly different interests and needs, diminishing the organization's cohesiveness along political and economic lines. Its regional security dialogue, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) has already expanded its membership to 21 dialogue partners. This expansion may exacerbate the forum's tendency toward process rather than substance. 3. The ARF remains a useful organization for cooperative security, however, cooperative security in Southeast Asia has inherent limitations; above all, it can never substitute for the relations between China, Japan and the United States. Relations among these three major powers could have profound consequences on the peace and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific region in the next century. If ASEAN and the ARF cannot control conflict or discuss the core regional issues such as China, the Korean peninsula, and Russia, then other fora for such discussion must be sought. In that case, the U.S. ought to consider a Northeast Asian security mechanism to handle the serious strategic issues of the region. 4. The U.S. can help establish a defense ministerial dialogue but it must work with ASEAN member states to focus such discussions on regional security issues. As recent tensions in the Taiwan Strait and riots in Indonesia suggest, the U.S. must not take for granted the current Southeast Asian peace; it must work actively to promote it. Background ASEAN was established in 1967 by five Southeast Asian countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines. Brunei joined in 1984. Vietnam was admitted in 1995. The organization is likely to admit Laos and Cambodia in 1997, and Burma by the year 2000. Before 1967 it was possible to think of Southeast Asia as a region in name only. The countries of the region enjoyed regional proximity, but little else. In 1960, for example, for every Thai who visited neighboring Burma or Cambodia, there were 200 who went to England, France, or the United States. Times have indeed changed, and it can be argued that ASEAN is largely responsible for creating the increased sense of regional identity. While this unity is certainly desirable, that alone does not explain the need for the United States to become more deeply involved in the region. The nations of ASEAN are the fastest growing consumers of U.S. goods and services today. If current trends continue, by the end of the first decade of the next century, ASEAN will be the United States' second largest trading partner, with two-way trade totaling more than $300 billion. The U.S. government thus has great self-interest in pursuing policies capable of handling relations with the region's predominant multilateral trade organization, ASEAN, as well as with each of its member countries on a bilateral basis. The current peace in Southeast Asia, which has provided the conditions necessary for the promotion of incredible economic growth, cannot be taken for granted. The United States must actively pursue bilateral and multilateral options for contact with the nations of Southeast Asia. U.S. Interests in ASEAN Politically and economically, Southeast Asia is gaining international weight and influence. In the next 15 years, the 10 countries that are likely to comprise ASEAN will have a combined population of 560 million people at an average age of 20. …

From a geopolitical perspective, the Asian littoral divides into three subregions: Northeast Asia (the People's Republic of China, Japan, North and South Korea, Taiwan and the Russian Far East), Southeast Asia (Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) and South Asia (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka). Both Northeast Asia and South Asia contain political and economic Great Powers. In the latter, India's economic activities and growing politico-security influence extend to all of Asia. In the former, Japan, China, South Korea and Taiwan play significant global economic roles, while Tokyo and Beijing are also major political-security players. By contrast, Southeast Asia contains no Great Powers with global reach. While the region consists of several states with vibrant economies--Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand--or economic potential--Vietnam and Indonesia--in geopolitical stature, Southeast Asia pales in comparison to its Northeast and South Asia neighbours. Yet Southeast Asia is where most Asian regional organizations originate and whose structures and procedures are determined by Southeast Asian preferences. The primary goal of this article is to explain how this has happened, what the implications are for Asia's future and whether Southeast Asian states organized for the past forty years through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will be able to maintain their pivotal position in Asian affairs. For the past several decades, the Asia-Pacific region has been marked by a difficult asymmetry: the most dangerous disputes lie in Northeast and South Asia while the region's multilateral institutions designed to manage and reduce conflict have originated in Southeast Asia. While ASEAN has maintained its organizational integrity, it has added new internal and external dimensions. The former include the incipient ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), the ASEAN Interparliamentary Organization which has been particularly vocal in condemning Myanmar's human rights violations, and the Track Three ASEAN People's Assembly, an NGO that brings a variety of societal interest groups together to lobby ASEAN governments. ASEAN-dominated organizations encompass the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) on security matters, ASEAN+3 (Japan, South Korea and China), various ASEAN+1 dialogues with important states, the ASEAN-Europe meeting (ASEM), and most recently, regular dialogues with the Gulf Cooperation Council, Africa and Latin America. The newest and most contentious addition to the mix is the East Asian Summit (EAS) inaugurated in December 2005. The EAS brings ASEAN+3 countries together with India, Australia and New Zealand--all of which have signed ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) as a membership condition. Conceptualizing ASEAN The Asia-Pacific region has no hegemon. Instead, political, economic and social networks proliferate. Regional issues are addressed through collective action. The various frameworks have diminished the strength of the absolute sovereignty norm that dominated ASEAN at the time of its 1967 creation. Over the ensuing decades, security issues have become increasingly transnational. Money laundering, human trafficking, environmental degradation, multi-national river development, migratory maritime species, terrorism and piracy require multilateral regime building rather than ad hoc diplomacy. In theory, at least, organizations such as ASEAN have established procedures and decision-making rules in which all governmental stakeholders have a voice. (2) Conceptualizing ASEAN, International Relations theorists generally employ three analytical frameworks: neo-realism, neoliberalism and constructivism. (3) Neo-realists disdain ASEAN's role in regional security because, in their view, institutions are epiphenomenal. Stability depends on the distribution of power within the Asia-Pacific and not on an international organization of small and medium states confined to Southeast Asia. …

U.S.–Southeast Asia Relations:Raised Stakes and Renewed Importance Brian Harding (bio) Southeast Asia’s profile has risen dramatically in U.S. foreign policy circles in recent years. After the United States drifted away from the region following the end of its involvement in Vietnam in 1975, U.S. attention began to return in the early days of the George W. Bush administration, although at that time largely in the context of President Bush’s global war on terrorism. Toward the end of the Bush years, Washington began to wake up to the broader importance of the region as a hub of global growth and as an arena where competition for the future shape of Asia would take place in the context of China’s rising regional influence. In 2007 the Bush administration sent a strong signal of U.S. interest in deepening ties with the region when it made the United States the first country to nominate an ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Meanwhile, outside the U.S. government, Southeast Asia studies programs began to crop up in the Washington think-tank community, suggesting broad interest among foreign policy elites in reflecting more deeply on the region’s importance. This pattern accelerated dramatically under President Barack Obama. This essay begins by describing developments in U.S.–Southeast Asia relations during the Obama administration and then outlines challenges that the Trump administration will face in the region. It concludes with policy recommendations for the Trump administration. Rebalance within the Rebalance U.S. engagement with Southeast Asia—both with the ten ASEAN countries bilaterally and with ASEAN as an institution—accelerated dramatically beginning in 2009 under the Obama administration. This surge in attention toward Southeast Asia followed decades of Northeast Asia dominating U.S. policymaking toward Asia. While the administration continued to pay considerable attention to Northeast Asia, a marked uptick in attention to Southeast Asia constituted a rebalance within the administration’s overall rebalance to Asia. [End Page 57] This shift was on clear display from the outset of the administration. When Secretary of State Hillary Clinton broke with 50 years of tradition and made her first trip as secretary to Asia, not only did she make stops in Northeast Asia powerhouses Tokyo, Seoul, and Beijing, but she also visited Jakarta to signal her intention to work more closely with Southeast Asia, including ASEAN’s de facto leader Indonesia. Furthermore, during that landmark visit, she became the first secretary of state to visit the ASEAN Secretariat, based in Jakarta. This move demonstrated that multilateral engagement with ASEAN would be a high priority in the administration’s regional approach, in line with Obama’s global re-engagement with multilateral structures. President Obama delivered on this early intention to engage ASEAN more deeply in numerous ways. Multilaterally, he signed with ASEAN the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, paving the way for U.S. membership in the East Asia Summit. He made the U.S. ambassador to ASEAN resident in Jakarta (another first for a non-ASEAN country). Obama inaugurated annual 10+1 ASEAN-U.S. summits and later in his presidency hosted a landmark U.S.-ASEAN leaders retreat at Sunnylands in California. On the people-people front, the Clinton State Department launched the highly successful Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative, aimed at deeper engagement with ASEAN youth. The Department of Defense also became increasingly engaged with ASEAN as it embraced the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus forum. Perhaps most importantly, U.S. officials across the government began to make a habit of showing up at regional meetings at all levels, including through the secretary of state’s annual attendance at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). Bilateral relations in the region also surged. The U.S.-Philippines alliance went from near irrelevance to a central component of Asia policy, with the signing of the landmark Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement bringing the relationship into a new era. Ties with Myanmar began anew when Obama seized the opportunity that reforms presented to ease sanctions and normalize relations, while the end of defense trade restrictions with Vietnam signaled a full normalization of ties. Throughout the region, the...

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is the focal point for regional diplomacy and interstate governance in Southeast Asia. Since its foundation in 1967, the organization’s membership, institutional footprint, and mandate have expanded markedly. The now ten member states—Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam—and its professed ASEAN Community are engaged in an ever-expanding array of regional initiatives across political-security, economic, and sociocultural concerns. The organization is of growing importance for states beyond the region as well, given the region’s place within the wider “Indo-Pacific” region and ongoing tensions between the United States and China. The literature on diplomacy in ASEAN is vast and varied. Much material centers on the origins, evolution, and efficacy of ASEAN as a regional organization and its diplomatic principles and norms, the so-called ASEAN way. The literature surveyed here examines the institutional and normative context within which ASEAN diplomacy operates and highlights major contemporary issues in the study of ASEAN diplomacy. This article is structured in eleven sections. It begins with a series of general, canonical accounts of ASEAN diplomacy and governance. The second section highlights literature engaged in a debate over the efficacy and consequence of ASEAN and its diplomatic norms. The third section surveys literature that centers attention on a core element of the study of ASEAN diplomacy: the prospects of a security community in Southeast Asia. The fourth section surveys a growing and related literature that examines the practice and discourse in ASEAN diplomacy. The fifth section highlights literature that situates ASEAN diplomacy within the context of the institutions of the wider Asia-Pacific region, including the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), East Asian Summit (EAS), and ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMM+). Section six focuses on regional peace and conflict management between ASEAN member states. The seventh section explores two additional intraregional issues: leadership in ASEAN and relations with the so-called CLMV states of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam, with a focus on Myanmar. Section eight centers on track two diplomacy and the role of civil society organizations in regional diplomacy and governance. Section nine examines institutional evolution with a focus on the changing organizational and normative context of ASEAN diplomacy. Section ten highlights ASEAN-China relations with a focus on the diplomatic management of the South China Sea disputes. The final section surveys a growing literature that places ASEAN diplomacy and governance in a comparative context.

T n HE ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS (ASEAN) has the reputation of being the most successful indigenously produced regional organization in the developing world.' Much of that reputation is attributable to ASEAN's apparent internal cohesion and international effectiveness. In the post-cold war era, ASEAN hopes to build on its success by shaping the emerging security relations of the Asia-Pacific through new mechanisms such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). However, ASEAN's influence on Southeast Asia's regional security environment during the cold war was both more nuanced than is commonly recognized and dependent on a set of unique circumstances. ASEAN's experiences with regional security in the cold war are not readily transferred to the post-cold war era. This paper is a discussion and evaluation of ASEAN's efforts to manage its regional security environment (i.e., to affect the actors and events shaping security in Southeast Asia). The main argument of this paper is that ASEAN's ability to manage regional security in Southeast Asia has been, and is, limited by two factors: one, the interests and actions of the great powers, which have defined the parameters of ASEAN's security policies; and two, divergent security perceptions and interests within ASEAN, which have defined the limits of intraorganizational cooperation and made it difficult to evaluate the significance of ASEAN's stated security objectives. ASEAN has improved relations between its member states, but these achievements are contingent on its success as a larger regional actor. The ASEAN member states remain mostly motivated by narrow understandings of their self-interests, which are not always congruent and can undermine ASEAN's unity and ability to function effectively. ASEAN's present efforts to incorporate Vietnam, Burma, Laos and, eventually, Cambodia, may exacerbate this problem. This paper is broken into five sections. After a brief historical overview, I review ASEAN's stated regional security objectives and the political and

This article explores the EU’s attempts at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) to encourage Myanmar directly, or indirectly via the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), to connect with security cooperation. It argues that both ASEAN’s assumption of responsibility and Myanmar’s taking on of multilateral security options were linked to the EU’s policy at ARF. In order to demonstrate this, the article provides an historical insight into the EEC/EU’s relations with ASEAN, in 1980, leading to the EU’s participation in the ARF in 1993. It focuses on the EU’s messages at the Forum when the EU and ASEAN co-chaired the ARF meetings. Meetings co-chaired by both were held between 2004 and 2008. The investigation relates to the ARF as to a framework where interactions develop, and uses Cyclone Nargis that ravaged Myanmar in 2008 to assess Myanmar and ASEAN’s conduct. In evaluating Yangon and the Association’s behaviour, the article is helped by explanations provided by social mechanisms, an appropriateness logic and observations derived from interviews conducted in Southeast Asia and Brussels. The article covers the interaction between the EU and Myanmar before the outbreak of the Rohingya crisis, which gave EU policies towards Myanmar a new dimension.

This article examines the efforts that have been made by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as an institution to deal with the Asian crisis. At the national level, member countries have taken steps to strengthen supervision of banks, foster great transparency in financial transactions, and promote competition. At the bilateral level, ASEAN members have extended assistance to the most affected countries, especially Indonesia. At the international level, ASEAN members have collectively appealed to the advanced countries to keep their markets open, to be more accommodating in the renegotiation of debt, and to remember to protect the poor in their reform programmes. The article traces ASEAN initiatives at successive meetings, but concludes that existing economic co-operation programmes need to be widened in scope and deepened in commitments. Introduction There appears to be a serious gap in perceptions between ASEAN officials and the public in and outside ASEAN on the efforts made by that institution to overcome the economic crisis that has affected all its members, albeit in varying degrees. Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia have been hit hardest; Singapore and the Philippines to a much lesser extent. Yet, a prolonged and deep crisis in the severely affected regional economies will also pull down the growth rates in Singapore and the Philippines as has been evident since the beginning of 1998. Even countries such as Vietnam and Laos that are relatively more insulated are also affected by the economic slowdown in the region. Since the regional impact of the crisis is so pronounced, it would be logical to expect ASEAN to be in the forefront of regional and international responses to the crisis. In the public's view this is one of the most important reasons for having ASEAN and for promoting ASEAN economic co-operation. The public has been largely disappointed with ASEAN. Its perception is that of a helpless ASEAN, an ASEAN that cannot move decisively, an ASEAN that is trapped under its organizational and bureaucratic weight, and an ASEAN that fails to respond to real, current problems and challenges. Perhaps this public perception has been influenced mainly by ASEAN's failure in 1996 and 1997 to do something tangible about the severe regional haze problem that affected the health of the people in many ASEAN countries. The expansion of ASEAN membership to include a problem country such as Myanmar, and the difficulties ASEAN has encountered in bringing in Cambodia, are regarded as hampering ASEAN's ability to act swiftly. They are also seen as weakening the diplomatic clout that ASEAN would need to effectively mobilize international support in resolving the crisis (Hernandez 1998). There has been much soul-searching in ASEAN during the past year that coincided with the onset of the crisis. Until then ASEAN was still in a state of euphoria due to the region's remarkable record of rapid economic growth, the near completion of the One Southeast Asia enterprise, and its important role in the creation of the wider regional co-operative structures by virtue of being a copilot in APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) and occupying the driver's seat in the ARF (ASEAN Regional Forum). This position crumbled almost overnight with the financial meltdown. ASEAN's future relevance to its members and to the region suddenly becomes a relevant question in many quarters, even within the ASEAN officialdom. ASEAN, some have argued, cannot maintain its relevance if it continues to be inhibited by the principle of nonintervention that it has held sacrosanct. Suggestions were made to bring ASEAN back to the drawing board. It is to be re-established under a new principle of constructive involvement (Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim) or flexible engagement (Thailand's Foreign Minister) that enables its members to discuss domestic developments in an ASEAN member that affect other members' security and well-being, ASEAN's cohesiveness, and the security of the wider region (Wanandi 1998). …

Introduction This article uses the term institution as defined by James G. March and Johan P. Olsen: a general way, an 'institution' can be viewed as a relatively stable collection of practices and rules defining appropriate behaviour for specific groups of actors in specific situations. (March and Olsen 1998, p. 948). Against this backdrop, security institutions are institutions that have an impact on the special field of security (Keck 1997, p. 35). Haftendorn (1997, p. 16) points out the following impacts that make security institutions relevant: * Like all institutions security institutions have the general function of influencing the action of their members towards continuing cooperation by installing accepted rules of behaviour despite competing interests. * In addition, security institutions have the specific function of facilitating cooperation among their members in the provision of security, that is, territorial integrity, political self-determination and economic well-being, against any military threat. Applying these conditions the ARF, we will examine its suitability foster regional security cooperation determine its relevance. According Haftendorn, national security is defined in the dimensions of territory, sovereignty and economy. The explicit notion of military threat as the main danger national security is very important because it rules out the far broader notion of comprehensive security (Dewitt 1994, p. 9), whose operationalization lies outside the scope of this article. As any institution will only be relevant if it does not harm the core interests of its member-states too much in an overall cost-benefit calculation, (1) this analysis of the relevance of the ARF first has examine whether the interests of its central members are opposed the ARF's agenda and raison d'etre. The three most powerful national actors (United States, People's Republic of China, and Japan) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) all have an interest in supporting the ARF. Because both China and the ASEAN states fear that foreign investment might shy away from their economies if there is regional instability, they favour an environment that is as peaceful and calculable as possible. Furthermore, China has participate in the ARF because it cannot risk confirming the anxieties of its neighbours, who might gang up in a regional institution against the country (Leifer 1996, p. 29; Foot 1998, p. 439; Umbach 2002, p. 254). China hoped overcome its international isolation after 1989 by joining international fora like the ARF (Johnston 1999, p. 296). For Japan the ARF is a possible way to deepen its political relationship with ASEAN [...] and solidify its strategic position toward China. Such a strategy is an insurance policy, supplementary the U.S.-Japanese alliance, in case China changes into an actual adversary (Kawasaki 1997, p. 490). Second, a multilateral framework is the sole possibility for Japan gain more political leverage in East Asia as its militant past still limits Japan's room for manoeuvre. Third, it is in Japan's interest have a multilateral structure in place address the Korean and the Taiwan conflicts in its vicinity. The United States was willing embrace the forum as soon as it became clear that the ARF would not affect its close alliances with South Korea and Japan (Wanandi 1998, p. 59). To integrate these two key allies into a common cooperative framework was a major incentive for the United States support the ARF (Leifer 1996, p. 28). Both do not have a habit of easy cooperation due their past conflicts and existing territorial disputes. Furthermore, the ARF was seen as a good way ease the worries of many governments in the region that the United States would withdraw troops (Takur 1998, p. 12) and therefore increase the strategic standing of China in the region (Gob and Acharya 2003, p. …

If we had to choose one word to describe the relationship between China and the Southeast Asian states, it would be “asymmetric.” China’s population is 2.2 times the combined population of the ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).1 Its GDP is 4.3 times these countries’ combined GDP,2 while its 2017 military expenditure was almost 6 times the amount they spent collectively.3 Some scholars like to use the metaphor of Gulliver and the Lilliputians to compare China and the ASEAN states in world politics.4 The hope is that the Lilliputians can somehow tie up Gulliver if they work together. In the post–Cold War era, the ASEAN states successfully constrained China’s behavior through multilateral institutions, especially the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF). After the 2008 global financial crisis, China’s assertive diplomacy in the South China Sea indeed caused some worries and suspicions in the region. However, the overall relationship between China and the ASEAN states has not fundamentally changed. Since 2013, China has continued its “charm offensive” to woo the ASEAN states with the proposal of the Maritime Silk Road—a massive infrastructure investment project that is part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). On the one hand, Chinese investments, especially in the infrastructure sector, are largely welcomed in Southeast Asia despite some ups and downs, such as Malaysia’s [End Page 17] cancelation of two BRI-funded projects. The ASEAN states have, on the other hand, kept a nuanced and balanced attitude toward U.S. competition with China. I argue that a relationship of strategic interdependence has taken shape between China and the ASEAN states. Each side views the other as an indispensable actor in pursuing its strategic interests. Although the power asymmetry between China and the ASEAN states makes the latter more vulnerable than the former, the U.S. factor increases the sensitivity of China’s strategic dependence on ASEAN. Multilateral institutions have played a vital role in shaping Chinese-ASEAN relations. The more institutionalized relationship will empower both parties to reduce vulnerability and sensitivity levels in their nascent strategic interdependence in the future.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum (ARF) was created under the leadership of ASEAN—the leadership that one observer described as “a historically rare leadership of regional political security by the region’s medium and small powers.”1 At the inauguration meeting in Bangkok, therefore, Japan participated at the invitation of other non-ASEAN countries. Being an invitee notwithstanding, the Japanese officials at the meeting expressed high enthusiasm—something beyond mere diplomatic praise—for the new regional institution. Then Foreign Minister Yohei Kono stated, “Today, July 25, 1994, will become a memorable day for the Asia-Pacific as the birthday of the ARF. Let us confirm that we will make steady efforts together in order to rear this child called [the] ARF.”2 A senior government official applied a similar analogy: The “ARF is still like a newborn baby. The most important thing now is for all 18 participating countries to recognize ARF as a baby [for which] they must cooperate to raise.”3 As will be shown below, the “newborn baby” analogy appears quite accurate in reflecting how the Japanese government was involved in the process of creating the ARF—the first pan-regional security institution in Asia.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), comprising ten member states in Southeast Asia, plays a pivotal role in maintaining regional security and stability. Its capacity as a regional actor is underpinned by a robust legal foundation, encompassing internal agreements, international legal instruments, and a shared commitment among member states to uphold peace and order in the region. These frameworks collectively support ASEAN’s identity and function as a middle power in regional security governance. Positioned strategically along major global trade routes and situated amidst intensifying great power rivalries, ASEAN has emerged as a key stabilizing actor in the Indo-Pacific. Through institutional mechanisms such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM), the organization has actively engaged in addressing both traditional and non-traditional security challenges, including maritime disputes in the South China Sea and the growing threat of terrorism. Despite its achievements, ASEAN faces notable internal constraints, such as divergent national interests among member states and the increasing external influence of major powers, which may hinder its collective autonomy and decision-making coherence. Nevertheless, ASEAN holds significant potential to enhance its role as a middle power, particularly in fostering multilateral cooperation on non-traditional security issues. This study examines ASEAN’s capacity across five key dimensions: strategic geographical positioning, institutional architecture, response to security challenges, internal limitations, and future prospects. By adhering to a consensus-based diplomatic model and an inclusive regional approach, ASEAN continues to be a critical actor in shaping and sustaining regional security and order. Keywords: ASEAN, regional security, middle power, multilateral cooperation, Southeast Asia.

A conventional explanation for the establishment of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) holds that it was an attempt on the part of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to maintain US military engagement in Asia while tactically promoting cooperative relations with China in the post-Cold War era. This line of argument is associated with realism and neoliberalism. This article maintains that such an explanation is unsatisfactory, and seeks to offer a sounder explanation by employing a constructivist perspective. It argues that the interests and policies of the ASEAN countries which had led them to initiate the ARF were defined by what can be regarded as a norm of security cooperation in Asia. This norm contains two sets of ideational elements. The first is common security thinking fostered in the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE). Such thinking emphasizes efforts to achieve the security of the whole region through multilateral security cooperation, on the basis of the view that regional security is indivisible. The second element is a set of diplomatic norms associated with the ASEAN Way of diplomacy, which underline the Southeast Asian countries' commitment to the habit of dialogue and consultation. Today, the nature of the ARF may be disputed. Critics of the ARF assert that it is a mere ‘talking shop’ in which no significant measure to achieve security has been carried out. Yet only by understanding thoroughly the establishment process of the forum can a fair assessment be made of its significance. The research in this article concludes that the ARF should be seen as an arena for the development and practice of norms – in other words, a ‘norm brewery’.

The decision by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defence Ministers' Meeting-Plus (ADMM-Plus) in Malaysia in November 2015 to scrap a planned joint statement on the South China Sea issue was a stark reminder of the persistent differences among some of its member states. The ADMM-Plus is made up of the ten ASEAN countries and Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, and the United States. The failure to agree on a statement fostered the impression that the ADMM-Plus could go the way of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), an older and more established regional experiment in security cooperation that many today feel has grown moribund.1 Moreover, despite the decision by the ADMM-Plus to conduct its ministerial gatherings on a biennial rather than triennial basis, some pundits warn of the risk that the ADMM-Plus will end up as a talk shop that achieves little real progress.2But for the officials and military practitioners who make the ADMM-Plus tick, nothing could be further from the truth. Since the inaugural ADMM-Plus in Vietnam in 2010, joint military exercises involving the grouping's eighteen member countries have grown in frequency and complexity. Working groups set up in areas such as counterterrorism, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR), maritime security, military medicine, peacekeeping, and de-mining have started to bear fruit, albeit in certain areas more than in others. That said, despite its impressive accomplishments in practical collaboration-indeed, the ADMM-Plus has gone further than any existing regional cooperative framework-there are questions concerning how effective the ADMM-Plus can truly be as a mechanism for mitigating tensions and alleviating the trust deficits that have come to define interstate relations today in hotspots like the South China Sea.ASEAN Defense Cooperation before the ADMM-PlusSince the 1970s, if not earlier, the ASEAN countries have had no qualms about exploiting the space between collective and nonsecurity-oriented regionalism through bilateral security cooperation with one another, such as via border security agreements and intelligence exchanges. During the 1980s, Singapore's prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, proposed the idea of a trilateral or even quadrilateral arrangement, which was roundly rejected by his ASEAN counterparts. Subsequent calls were rendered by the Indonesian and Malaysia foreign ministers, Mochtar Kusumaatmadja and Abu Hassan Omar, for an ASEAN military arrangement and community, respectively.3 By 1989, bilateral military exercises between the so-called core ASEAN states-Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore-had become sufficiently thick as to merit being described by Indonesian vice president Try Sutrisno as a defense spider web. 4At its summit in Singapore in 1992, ASEAN formally included security issues in its agenda. By the mid-1990s, trilateral cooperation involving Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore had become relatively commonplace. The establishment of the ARF in 1994 paved the way for regular consultation among Asia-Pacific officials and practitioners through mechanisms such as the ARF Defence Officials' Dialogue and the ARF Security Policy Conference. Beyond the formal auspices of ASEAN, various military-to-military interactions and activities that have been regularized include the ASEAN Chiefs of Defence Forces Informal Meeting, the ASEAN Chiefs of Army Multilateral Meeting, the ASEAN Navy Interaction, the ASEAN Air Force Chiefs Conference, the ASEAN Military Intelligence Meeting, and the ASEAN Armies Rifles Meet. The Western Pacific Naval Symposium, formed in 1988, also deserves mention. In 2014 in Qingdao, the fourteenth symposium endorsed the establishment of a Code for Unplanned Encounters at Sea (CUES), a nonbinding pact for avoiding incidents at sea between countries and preventing those that do occur from escalating. …

This chapter investigates the EU's attempts at the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) to encourage Myanmar to connect with security cooperation. It centres on the EU's messages at ARF from 2004-2008, when the EU co-chaired the meetings with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and relates to the ARF as to a framework where interactions develop. Since the dialogue and training activities in the ARF framework concerned crisis management and disaster relief, the responses from Myanmar and ASEAN to Cyclone Nargis, which ravaged Myanmar in 2008, assisted in assessing their behaviour. With the help of explanations provided by social mechanisms, an appropriateness logic and observations derived from interviews conducted in Southeast Asia and Brussels, the chapter links the EU's policy at ARF to both ASEAN's assumption of responsibility and Myanmar taking on multilateral security options. The chapter concludes with comments on the EU's role and contribution to the Forum.