ASEAN risks being divided in US pivot to Asia - Institute for Maritime and Ocean Affairs

WHILE the United States, with the pivot to Asia, is testing China’s capability to handle diplomatic challenges in ties with its neighbourhood, it is carrying out the strategy increasingly at the expense of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) by driving wider the rifts among members of the regional bloc. Should the ASEAN nations continue to allow the platform, central in facilitating regional economic integration, to be hijacked by the political agenda of the United States and some of the ASEAN nations, it runs a real risk of being divided, said a senior researcher of international relations.

“If the ASEAN was divided, it might become irrelevant,” Zheng Yongnian, director of the East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore, said in a recent interview. The influence of the United States cannot be more overwhelmingly felt in recent years on the South China Sea. It has claimed that it “has a national interest in freedom of navigation, open access to Asia’s maritime commons and respect for international law in the South China Sea.” The rhetoric is often endorsed by Singapore. However, it calls for closer examination. Singapore may mean exactly what it says, being itself a free trade hub sitting on a critical route of sea- borne trade. However, the United States most probably does not.