Why BRICS Will Be The Death Knell Of ASEAN – Analysis
With the BRICS meetings in Kazan, Russia now over, and four ASEAN states are firmly on the waiting list to join, the relevance of ASEAN is clearly on the wane. It’s not just because the aims and objectives of BRICS are superseding the visions of ASEAN, where ASEAN’s basic premises have become irrelevant overtime.
ASEAN was conceived and eventually formed by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand 57 years ago in the midst of the Cold War. ASEAN was an intergovernmental framework to promote regional peace and stability, through respect for the rule of law, and adherence to the principles under the United Nations Charter.
Externally, ASEAN was intended to halt communist expansion in South-East Asia, while at the same time forging much greater intra-member cooperation, which hardly existed before the formation of ASEAN.
However, the very weakness of ASEAN lies in its organizational ambition to overcome differences through goodwill and understanding, faith, patience, perseverance, and realism. The result of this has been the inertia to do nothing because respective governments have been focused inward towards their own issues of governance. ASEAN nations have agreed to non-interference in the internal affairs of other members. This has primarily led to silence over Myanmar. There has been no ASEAN approach taken towards the plight of the Rohingya people, and the ASEAN relationship did not stop Cambodia-Thai conflict at Preah Vihear in 2008-2009.
Many pundits have mistakenly compared ASEAN with the European Union, and assumed ASEAN nations are aspiring towards an EU style model. ASEAN was conceived only as a meeting place, and the organization has remained as such, with no one to drive it since the former secretary-general Dr Surin Pitsuwan (2008-2012). Today, any secondment of ASEAN civil servants to the ASEAN secretariat in Jakarta is considered as punishment by high-ranking diplomatic staff.
BRICS was founded on a completely different premise. Although, BRICS meetings have become more of a “talkfest” in recent times, the grouping is very quickly becoming an economic block with a mission. Thirty-six nations attended the Kazan meeting, which represented 57% of the world’s population. BRICS economic size is now much bigger than the G7.
BRICS has been able to grow quickly because of the sanctions placed against Russia during the Russo-Ukraine conflict. The Biden administration and EU sanctions have spurred the realization of the need for nations of the “South” to join a forum/block that can build new diplomatic, economic, social and cultural paths.
From this perspective, BRICS is a part creation from the US, EU, and United Kingdom’s sanction policy. This has resulted in new South-South cooperation, like the Sino-Indian border agreement at the Kazan meeting, which could have not been imagined just a short time ago. The attendance of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, indicated that other forums will now be challenged by the influence of BRICS.
ASEAN cannot provide its member states what BRICS offers.
ASEAN is under the chair of Malaysia in 2025, which will be a challenge. Respective ASEAN governments no longer see any consensus, particularly with their view of the world today. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam see BRICS as their future path, where BRICS will most probably play a much broad influence in foreign policy, than considerations towards any ASEAN consensus, which is non-existent.
Some ASEAN members have become satellites of China, while Singapore affirms its strong relationship with the United States, together with the Philippines. Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam see strategic ambiguity to some degree as a position that best safeguards their national interests. Thus, these nations now must balance out the competition of China and the United States for primacy in South-East Asia.
There is also unspoken recognition of the reality that the United States under the Biden administration has slipped backwards in the region to a no-return position. Even with a Trump victory on November 5, Trump’s decision for the US to leave the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) during his first term, signalled US retreat. Chinese naval ships are seen much more in ASEAN today, with a semi-permanent port being at Cambodia’s ream naval base, with access directly into the Gulf of Thailand. Indo-Russian joint naval exercises in the Java Sea have brought in another superpower into the region. These exercises balance off the recent Indonesian military exercises with the US and its local allies.
The BRICS block, puts into question any strategic assurances defence pacts like the QUAD offer, with India as a member of both organizations. This brings a new paradigm to the region north of Australia, which should require countries like Australia to totally reevaluate their defence approach.
To ASEAN members, BRICS revives some of the spirit of the 1955 Bandung Conference, which laid the foundation for the non-aligned “South” 70 years ago. The incoming Indonesian President Prabowo didn’t even mention ASEAN in his inaugural Presidential Address.
Both China and Russia have shown their understanding of the aspirations of the “South-movement”, and are pandering to this. This has signalled the turning point in the strategic landscape of the Indo-Pacific region. ASEAN is collateral damage and will decline in any importance.
Non-BRICS nations may take heed in the BRICS Kazan declaration which reaffirms BRICS members commitment to multilateralism and upholding of international law, including the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations (UN). BRICS is a movement that should be engaged, not defended against.
Originally published in Eurasia Review 5th November 2024.
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ASEAN was designed to become that partof the world the West feared would fall into Chinese hands. It did. But not the Communist Chinese hands. Not even Vietnam.
The Americans and the British had an idea of creating a middle class of nimble fingered Asian women and ambitious English educated men from the major racial groups, the Kuomintang Chinese being 90% of all of these groups.
ASEAN fell captive to the Chinese. The Kuomintang Chinese. The US turned a blind eye to their crimniality as long as they served as a bulwark against Communist Chinese expansion in the region.
That plan collapsed aftere the fall of Vietnam to the Soviet backed North.
It was each to his own with Suharto a military dictator, Marcos a dictatorial despot and Le Kuan Yew a despot but a smarter one than the ottther two. Indo China had to be checked.
Todays ASEAN is nothing more than a directionless shell of is former self waiting for a powerful nation (both militarily and econommically) to give it direccction and pupose.
Sine China and India are two claws of a very strong crab, ASEAN is left with fe coinces of its own but to prepare to sucumb to the crab itself. And that crab today is neither the Soviets, or the USA. ASEAN not even Singapore has any political clout to be independent of the super powers.
BRICS can be that meat that will fill in the vaccum political and economic left by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the USA. One side (Vietnam and Laos(not Cambodia) re suspicious of China. So too the Philippines. Singapore is somewhere in between whilst the Philippines is anti Chinese.
To ASEAN the choices are stark and clear. Its either duck or dinner. None of them have a leader of quality than can rise to their challenges as Mahathir or Lee Kuan Yew did in thir time.