Asia Pacific Economic Leadership: Shifting from the US to China?

 

 

 

Impact on ASEAN Community 2015

But while ASEAN as a whole values China as a close economic partner, the group is also wary about China as a security threat. This has resulted in a two-dimensional relationship – a duality as some call it – that ASEAN has with China: a growing economic relationship paradoxically matched by increasing political tension caused by China’s aggressive claims over the South China Sea.

 

How to manage this two-dimensional relationship between ASEAN and China provided the backdrop of the ASEAN Summit this week in Myanmar and the back-to-back East Asia Summit.

 

By stepping on the accelerator towards FTAAP, China has virtually also quickened the pace of ASEAN’s own economic and political integration. The goal of an ASEAN Community – including a fully integrated ASEAN Economic Community by 31 Dec 2015 – cannot be further delayed. At the moment 80 percent of its integration targets have been realised, with the remaining “hard part” set to be tackled in the post-2015 era.

 

But surely the next lap cannot just be about tackling the unfinished business. If ASEAN Community 2015 is yet another pathway to the FTAAP, what is the vision of ASEAN post-2015? This is where ASEAN’s leaders must put on their thinking cap and collectively forge a roadmap to a new ASEAN that is a global player firmly situated in the 21st century.

 

This new vision must take into account the rapidly evolving economic and security architecture in the Asia Pacific. As displayed in Beijing this week, it will be a future in which China will not be shy to assert its economic leadership – in the same way it has staked its political dominance in the region.

 

ASEAN’s Dilemma

As the ASEAN leaders were convening for their summit in Naypyidaw, Obama and Xi in Beijing attempted to reforge the strategic relationship between the US and China, probing each other for a new calculus. Their major bilateral agreement on climate change was achieved in this context. But Obama is a lame-duck president on his way out, while Xi who is just two years in office, will be around for a full decade to lead a rising superpower.

 

ASEAN’s dilemma is this: It appreciates the increasingly prosperous relationship that is blossoming with China under Xi. Yet ASEAN knows it is also entering a potentially tense future with China under a leader who is prepared to flex China’s muscles – as seen in the resulting volatility of the South China Sea. Curiously, the regional tension over the territorial disputes is cooling down somewhat during this busy summit period.

 

Will ASEAN remain a mere bystander, watching from the wings as the power game continues to unfold between the two giants? Or will ASEAN do something to secure its pivotal position so that it could shape the future regional balance in its favour? This key question must have preoccupied the ASEAN leaders in Naypyidaw.

 

 

Yang Razali Kassim is Senior Fellow with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University