For those of us who grew up during the heydays of hyper-globalization in the 1990s and early 2000s, the souring of mood towards globalization and openness came as a shock.
For those of us who believed that economic interdependence and integration created the conditions for peace and prosperity and reduced the likelihood of war, we were shocked by the Russian full-scale and naked invasion of Ukraine.
For those of us who understood that international cooperation is necessary for us to solve many of the critical challenges facing us – from the climate emergency to future pandemics – we were frustrated with the slow progress made and the threats posed by ultra-nationalism and people’s desire to hide and shield behind walls and doors.
For those of us who believed in dialogue and exchange to promote mutual understanding we were taken aback by the coarsening of rhetoric in politics and diplomacy, the constant noises and competing narratives that turned dialogue into monologue.
In this increasingly hostile and volatile environment: What can small states like Singapore and regional entities such as the European Union (EU) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) do to pushback against protectionism and populism and prevent the downward spiral towards more instability, insecurities, and military conflicts? What steps can be taken to rebuild trust and re-invigorate open, plural societies working towards peaceful co-existence?
Singapore has been a major beneficiary of a free and open trading regime and hence an ardent supporter of a multilateral rules-based order.
As a small city state, it does not have the power to set the rules and is often the price-taker. But the need to survive and an understanding of its own vulnerability has made Singapore imbibe the importance of working pragmatically with like-minded partners and participate actively in multilateral forums and institutions to create the best possible conditions for growth and development.
In 1967, facing a volatile regional environment at the height of Cold war tensions manifested in the Vietnam war, five developing Southeast Asian nations – Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand – decided to come together to create the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
Singapore has been a major beneficiary of a free and open trading regime and hence an ardent supporter of a multilateral rules-based order.
ASEAN was founded on the fear of becoming the pawns of the superpowers in their global chess game. Founding members themselves also harbored reservations and mistrust towards each other due to their different colonial past. ASEAN thus became an important platform for intra-regional confidence building while also allowing the member states to band together to prevent themselves being suck into the bipolar great power competition.
ASEAN declared a Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOFPAN) in 1971 and sought to maintain a non-aligned position during the height of the Cold war era. The reality, however, was much more nuanced. ASEAN maintained a slightly pro-West, anti-communist stance and openly welcomed trade and investments ties with the West. From the 1970s, following the withdrawal of the US from Vietnam, ASEAN actively sought to build dialogue partnerships with various western-leaning countries from Australia to New Zealand and Canada to Japan, and importantly also the US, to keep the latter engaged in the region. The dialogue partnership between ASEAN and the EU was established during this time in 1977.
The ASEAN and EU dialogue partnership began in a low-key manner following a pattern of interaction pioneered by the then European Community (EC), the predecessor of the current EU.
The bloc to bloc / group-to-group relations pioneered by the EC in the 1970s was a way for the Community to manage its external relations with third countries, in response to the EC’s enlargement in 1973, and the institutionalization of the European Political Cooperation (EPC). The EC saw such bloc-to-bloc dialogue as a promising strategy to bring about a consistency in its international profile and an answer to managing global interdependence. The 1970s and 1980s saw the proliferation of such inter-regional dialogues (EC-GCC / EC-Mercosur, etc) pioneered by the EC.
ASEAN was founded on the fear of becoming the pawns of the superpowers in their global chess game.
The first decade of EC-ASEAN bloc to bloc relations was low-key and technocratic in nature, focusing primarily on development cooperation. It was also an unequal relationship taking the form of a kind of donor-donee relationship.
As the EC evolved and became the EU in 1993 and ASEAN grew more confident as a diplomatic community in the 1990s, the nature of their relations began to shift. The immediate post-Cold War environment brought about some tensions in the relations between the EU and ASEAN as they diverged over issues of democracy, human rights and the conditionalities imposed by the EU in its cooperation agreement.
The realities of an increasingly dynamic Asia-Pacific region led the EU to increase its attention to the region. The EU made attempts to take a more pragmatic and economically driven approach to its relations with ASEAN, and for the EU to use ASEAN as a cornerstone of its wider engagement in the Asia-Pacific.
In the EU’s 2006 Global Europe strategy, ASEAN was identified as one of the priority regions for the EU’s trade and investment interests. This led the EU to try and pursue an ambitious bloc-to-bloc Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with ASEAN. The endeavor to negotiate an EU-ASEAN FTA reflected a certain lack of understanding of how ASEAN as an inter-governmental association functions, and the desire to see ASEAN through its own lens.
The great divergence in political and economic developments within ASEAN, the lingering human rights issues, the different priorities, and diverse levels of ambitions on the FTA and the fact that ASEAN does not negotiate as a bloc, forced the EU to suspend its negotiations for an ambitious bloc-to-bloc FTA.
Instead, the EU switched to negotiating bilaterally with each ASEAN member state, starting with Singapore, and then Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. So far, the EU has only concluded two FTAs in the Southeast Asian region - with Singapore and Vietnam.
The endeavor to negotiate an EU-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement reflected a certain lack of understanding of how ASEAN as an inter-governmental association functions, and the desire to see ASEAN through its own lens.
While continuing to pursue its economic interests in Southeast Asia, the EU has also since the second decade of the 21st century began to take a more active interest in the security and stability of the region. This is in part due to the rise of China and the increasing assertiveness of China in the South China Sea, staking its claims over a wide swath of SCS and the atolls and islands within this vast maritime domain. The US pivot to Asia in 2011 and increasing competition between the US and China changed the geopolitical undercurrents in the Asia-Pacific region.
In May 2015, the EU issued a Joint Communication on its relations with ASEAN entitled “The EU and ASEAN: A Partnership with a Strategic Purpose”. In this Communication, the EU acknowledged that “it has a strategic interest in strengthening its relations with ASEAN” because “ASEAN is at the heart of the efforts to build a more robust regional security order in the wider Asia-Pacific”.
Becoming geo-strategic partners
In 2020, the EU and ASEAN upgraded its longstanding dialogue partnership to a strategic partnership.
The election of Donald Trump as the US’ 45th President (in 2016) and its “America First” policies, Brexit, and the widespread rise of nativist, far right parties upended the multilateral rules-based order which the EU and ASEAN had greatly benefitted from.
The strategic rivalry between the US and China drove the US to embrace the geo-strategic conceptualization of the Indo-Pacific and strengthening the development of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) first put forth by the Japanese in 2007. Bringing together the US, Japan, Australia and India, QUAD was re-energized in 2017 when Trump saw in QUAD a potential instrument to contain the rising influence of China.
As the US pivot from Asia-Pacific to the Indo-Pacific, a number of European powers (France, Germany, the Netherlands) followed suit with their own Indo-Pacific strategies. In September 2021, the EU released its very own Indo-Pacific strategy to stamp the mark by the Union to make its significant presence in the region matters.
As the US-China rivalry in all spheres intensify with the heightened risk of a Cold War 2.0, or a worst outcome of a military conflict, the EU and ASEAN have the joint responsibility and interests to try and bring a more inclusive and open vision of the Indo-Pacific to the table.
This is where the 2019 ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific and the EU 2021’s Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific can serve as blueprints for cooperation based on common interests, underpinned by accepted rules and norms. To maintain such a more open approach, the EU and ASEAN must stand up to increasing demands to make a binary choice between the US and China.
The EU and ASEAN have the joint responsibility and interests to try and bring a more inclusive and open vision of the Indo-Pacific to the table.
The EU’s desire to strengthen its strategic autonomy and sovereignty, and ASEAN’s interest in maintaining its centrality in the Indo-Pacific region require both to think strategically about how they can complement and support each other to bring about a more stable and development-focused global order.
Mitigating unintended consequences
The second Trump term is likely to bring about more volatilities and uncertainties as he threatens to unleash tariffs on all those (allies included) deemed to have taken advantage of the US, and at the same time turn attention inward to the US to address domestic concerns over immigration. Whether he will be able to bring about a negotiated settlement over the war in Ukraine is still anyone’s guess. What is certain is the political disruptions that a second Trump administration promised to unleash in the States which in turn will have serious repercussions for the rest of the world.
What are steps that the EU and ASEAN can take to “trump-proof” and mitigate the unintended consequences of the US policies in the near and middle-term?
In the immediate term, both the EU and ASEAN need to work on their own internal cohesion and unity and strengthen the resilience of their respective institutional frameworks. The EU’s support for ASEAN economic integration through its various capacity-building programs, such as . ARISE (ASEAN Regional Integration Support) or E-READI (Enhanced EU-ASEAN Dialogue Instrument), and the EU’s active participation in ASEAN-led political and security dialogue forum such as the ASEAN Regional Forum are positive factors that help to strengthen ASEAN.
In turn, ASEAN should further enhance the role of the EU in the Indo-Pacific by inviting the EU and its member states to other ASEAN-led mechanisms such as the East Asia Summit, and the ADMM Plus (ASEAN Defence Minister’s Meeting).
As the old liberal global order crumples, both the EU and ASEAN have an interest in participating actively in shaping the future world order. How can they reform existing institutions or create new ones? What existing rules can be revised to make them fit for purpose for the current zeitgeist and what new norms and principles need to evolve to accommodate the diversities and pluralism in the international community? These questions have to be tackled.
The EU and ASEAN must put substance into their strategic partnership, and the first step is to recognize each other as an indispensable actor in its own right. The EU and ASEAN must not let Sino-US rivalry define their relationship. Instead, they must recognize each other’s agency and be razor-focused on what each and both can do and how they can coordinate their efforts to build a more inclusive and connected world. The existential challenges that the world faces cannot be solved by the closing of minds and borders.