Ukraine invasion: Asean should have called out Russia’s attack but it chose to stay mute
- Apart from Singapore, most members of the bloc who rely on Russian arms have shied away from outrightly condemning Moscow’s aggression
- Asean’s reluctance to take a firm stand on global issues that matter doesn’t augur well for regional security where interests of great powers collide
Yet, the Asean statement did not call out Russia’s invasion of the eastern European nation by its name and it just expressed deep concerns over “the evolving situation and armed hostilities in Ukraine” – a general description absent of legitimate value judgment over the Russian hostile acts against its neighbour. The statement also called on “all relevant parties to exercise maximum restraint” and stressed that “it is the responsibility of all parties to uphold the principles of mutual respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity and equal rights of all nations”.
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This equidistant approach in effect apportions the liability between Russia and Ukraine in equal degrees. This in turn attenuates the severity and blatancy with which Moscow has used force against Kyiv despite the latter’s plea for peace and readiness to have talks “with anybody, in any format, on any platform”. By blurring the line between the aggressor and the defender, the statement renders its invocation of “sovereignty, territorial integrity and equal rights of all nations” meaningless and pointless.
As an intergovernmental organisation, Asean is often “the sum of its parts”. When the parts conflict with each other, what we have is the lowest common denominator that can amount to a zero-sum. The bloc’s declaration is in fact a zero-sum result of very divergent and conflicting positions of its member states regarding the situation in Ukraine.
Observers of Asean have come to terms with the grouping’s meekly centrist position on the South China Sea row amid Beijing’s growing economic and military clout in the region. Russia, however, is a marginal player in Southeast Asia’s trade and economic integration, and it figures remotely in most people’s strategic thinking. In the State of Southeast Asia 2020 survey by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, a Singaporean think tank, Russia ranked last in economic influence and second last in strategic-political influence in the region – well behind China, the US, Japan and the European Union.
Russia’s Ukraine attack and the limits of China’s foreign policy
Russia matters most as a major weapons supplier to some Southeast Asian nations, including Vietnam, Indonesia and Myanmar, which explains why they chose not to antagonise Moscow. These internal interests aside, their ambivalence towards Russia’s act of aggression is driven by a lack of empathy for what they see as a distant conflict as described by Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, “We are not located beside Ukraine and it’s none of our business to meddle in whatever they’re doing in Europe.”
Yet, the Ukraine conflict – geographically remote as it may seem – holds striking parallels to the security dynamics in Southeast Asia where the interests of great powers also intersect and their visions of regional order increasingly collide, adding complications to the inherent strategic incongruence within the region. Furthermore, holding on to the basic principles of international law is of paramount importance to Asean members to mediate the vast power asymmetry among themselves and between these states and larger powers.
This in turn has provided the bloc with the normative influence that is widely acknowledged in Asia-Pacific and Asean member states could have utilised the high moral ground of their regional grouping to go beyond their national positions and mount a robust principled stand to denounce the use of force and the aggression against a sovereign nation. Instead, they opted for a minimalist approach, shying away from speaking truth to power.
As countries around the world reflect on the Russian offensive in Ukraine and what it means for their own national security, Asean member states should act with strategic foresight rather than with a parochial mindset. Otherwise, as Philippine Foreign Secretary Teodoro Locsin Jnr warned last year, Asean is turning out as “a bunch of guys who always agree with each other on the worthless things.” His bluntness is very un-Asean, but it is the hard reality that the grouping is confronting with – its voice is often mute on issues that really matter.