Abstract
Focusing on the Philippines’ changing foreign policy agendas on the South China Sea dispute, this article examines the limitations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) intergovernmental approach in addressing security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region. It contends that former President Benigno Aquino III tried to harness this regional organisation in his balancing policy vis-à-vis China’s maritime expansion in the South China Sea. On the contrary, President Rodrigo Duterte promoted his appeasement policy on China when he became the ASEAN’s chairperson in 2017, and pushed for the elusive passage of the ASEAN–China Code of Conduct in 2019. In conclusion, the article scrutinises the implications of this shift in the Philippines’ foreign policy for the ASEAN, and raises the need for this regional organisation to rethink its intergovernmental approach to the security challenges posed by the changing geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific region.
Highlights
Focusing on the Philippines’ changing foreign policy agendas on the South China Sea dispute, this article examines the limitations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) intergovernmental approach in addressing security challenges in the Indo-P acific region
In 2016, the succeeding Duterte Administration adopted an appeasement policy on China
President Duterte considered China’s emergence as a major economic power house and its launching of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). He was apprehensive that if the Philippines continued its balancing policy on China, the country would not be able to avail of Chinese investments and aid under the BRI
Summary
Since the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, a variety of multi-lateral security institutions and organisations have been created and maintained to prevent or manage conflict and to enhance regional prosperity in the Indo-P acific (Taylor, 2013). Indonesia formulated an ASEAN-centred Indo-Pacific Strategy as a reaction to the United States’ “Free and Open Indo-P acific,” which Jakarta perceived as an exclusionary American grand strategy aimed at isolating China It was suspicious of the formation of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) – composed of the United States, Japan, Australia, and India – as a coalition of external maritime powers to constrain China, which can undermine the ASEAN’s centrality in regional affairs. The ASEAN’s acceptance of the AOIP as an outlook not as a strategy reflects its cautious, if not a weak, approach to regional security trends, and more significantly, its member-s tates’ divergent views on the Indo-Pacific concept. This is the case of the Philippines as it changed its foreign policy goals on the South China Sea dispute in particular and towards China in general
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