China aims to improve ties with ASEAN

By Rizal Sukma

JAKARTA (JP): Chinese Prime Minister Li Peng's recent visit to Malaysia and Singapore marked a further attempt by Beijing to forge closer ties with ASEAN countries.

The visit provided a good opportunity for China to explain its role and policies in Southeast Asia, in particular, and the Asia- Pacific, in general.

In Singapore, for example, Li once again maintained that the so-called "China threat" theory was baseless. China has also put forward another proposal for joint cooperation in the Spratley Islands. These developments, if sustained, will be welcomed by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries.

Despite such assurances, however, two main challenges remain in future efforts to improve ASEAN-China relations.

1. How to deal with elements of "inconsistency" and "uncertainty" in China's foreign behavior, especially with regard to territorial conflicts in the South China Sea

2. How to address the question of Taiwan, either within ASEAN or in the wider framework of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF).

The first challenge poses a delicate problem for the way ASEAN deals with China's behavior in the South China Sea and how the association attempts to create a more predictable regional order in the post-Cold War Southeast Asia.

The second challenge has wider implications as it would affect the future course of ASEAN-China relations and determine the future role of the association in the ARF. It poses a real problem for ASEAN's role as "the primary driving force" in the ARF process.

The South China Sea disputes would be the first "issue area" directly affected by the inconsistency and uncertainty in China's foreign behavior.

Due to the importance of national sovereignty and territorial integrity for the Chinese leaders, it is likely that the search for a peaceful solution to the South China Sea disputes would continue at present pace and, therefore, present another protracted problem for ASEAN to handle.

Based on its experience in seeking solutions to the Cambodian conflict, in which China was involved albeit in a less direct manner, ASEAN is all too familiar with how such a conflict exposed its own weaknesses.

The Cambodian conflict has demonstrated how difficult it was for ASEAN to deal with a regional security problem on a common policy basis. It also demonstrated the difficulty that ASEAN must face when it tackles the question of how best to respond to China's role in the region.

More importantly, the Cambodian conflict revealed the limit of ASEAN's capacity to play a moral role.

The South China Sea conflict, especially due to the sensitivity of the issue and the presence of military elements, will be a more delicate problem than the Cambodian conflict.

There is no guarantee that a quick solution, through the use of force, would be viewed as a non-option for parties in the dispute.

In this regard, China is seen as the main party which has the tendency to move into that direction and use force to assert its claims in the area.

The incident between China and the Philippines in early 1995, over the status of the Mischief Reef, sent a clear sign that Beijing had changed its approach. This suggested that Beijing was no longer hesitant to make military moves against other claimants.

Another area of concern for ASEAN is how far the strategy of bilateral negotiations, currently employed by China, will divide ASEAN's unity and cohesiveness.

China has repeatedly attempted to negotiate with other claimants on a bilateral basis. The most recent bilateral talks were held between China and Vietnam in April 1995. Such developments, however, could present a new problem for ASEAN.

It is not unlikely that Vietnam, which recently became a member of ASEAN, might be seen in some circles as already having a dividing effect on the association. While at the same time Vietnam may be seen as trying to manipulate its membership for its own narrow interests vis-a-vis China.

In this regard, it seems that China understands very well the problem confronting other claimants in the South China Sea disputes. However, ASEAN claimants are more prepared than China to accept a multilateral approach to the disputes.

Beijing seems to recognize that there might also be some wariness among its rivals that such an approach would force them to grant public recognition over the rights of others in the area.

Indeed, ASEAN is well aware of such a possibility and it has taken measures to deal with the problem accordingly, especially at a multilateral level.

For example, ASEAN has always tried to persuade China to respect the association-proclaimed codes of conduct -- such as Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) -- as the norms, values, and principles around which the interests of all parties should converge.

At the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) in August 1995, ASEAN foreign ministers issued a Declaration on the South China Sea conflict calling all parties to "refrain from taking actions that could destabilize the region ..."

More specifically, through Indonesia's informal initiative, ASEAN has also begun to bring China into a dialog forum which specifically explores the positive ways to manage the disputes.

Through such efforts, ASEAN clearly hoped to induce a certain degree of predictability into the behavior of each party. However, China's attitude and responses toward such ASEAN initiatives seem to have made ASEAN's role more difficult in its attempts to make the regional political relations more predictable.

First, ASEAN has always been frustrated by inconsistency in China's behavior. Second, China remains reluctant to use multilateral forums in seeking solutions to the South China Sea disputes and ignored calls by ASEAN to denounce the use of force in solving the disputes.

With regard to the Taiwan question, the main problem for ASEAN stems from growing signs of an independence push among the Taiwanese leaders and people.

Since the end of the Chiang era in Taiwan, President Lee Teng- hui -- a native Taiwanese who came to power in 1988 after the death of president Chiang Ching-kuo -- has shown a tendency to harbor a new vision for his country.

Tired of being a non-legitimate actor in the international community, Taiwan opted for a more aggressive foreign policy commensurate with its tremendous economic achievements and strength.

Taiwan now pursues a new policy of t'an hsing wai-chiao (flexible diplomacy) to create a larger diplomatic space for itself and play a more important international role. Through this new policy, Taiwan sought international recognition as a political entity separate from mainland China.

The initial results of Taiwan's new policy in Southeast Asia have been alarming for Beijing. Since the 1980s and early 1990s, contacts between ASEAN and Taiwan officials, either at ministerial or above ministerial levels, have been growing significantly.

The diplomatic contacts have also been more substantial than in any previous period. During the 1986/1991 period, for example, Taiwan's direct investment in five ASEAN countries (not Brunei or Vietnam) amounted to US$11.7 billion.

In this regard, Beijing resented the fact that Taiwan had been able to use its economic advantage for extracting political and diplomatic mileage in this region.

ASEAN would face a difficult problem if Taiwan really declared itself an independent state separate from mainland China and demanded recognition from them. This would be ASEAN's worst nightmare.

There has not been any major discussion among ASEAN members on how it should respond to such a possibility. The association's attitude has been to leave any decision about the Taiwan issue to the parties involved. Moreover, ASEAN continues to see the problem in terms of the "One China Policy" and the fact that "Taiwan is part of China".

Given such possibilities, ASEAN's position in the ARF would be a difficult one. On the one hand, ASEAN clearly expects the ARF to be a vehicle through which China's positive participation could be assured.

For ASEAN, China's participation is a paramount priority for any attempt at building a stable regional order. On the other hand, the rise of the Taiwan question with its inevitable implications for ASEAN shows that Taiwan is a significant security problem which affects the stability of the Asia-Pacific region.

For example, during Beijing's military intimidation of Taiwan in early 1996, it was reported that Taiwan urged Indonesia, Singapore, and the Philippines to provide military cooperation if there was an outbreak of war (Yomiuri Shimbun as quoted in Republika, March 12, 1996).

This demonstrates further that the question of Taiwan is not an issue that ASEAN can easily avoid. Indeed, the Taiwan question serves as the most visible issue linking the security of Southeast Asia with that of Northeast Asia.

How, then, can ASEAN-China relations be improved in the future?

Even though both "China problems" discussed above will become pressing issues in China-ASEAN relations, it does not mean that both sides have no positive ground upon which a better and more constructive relationship can be forged.

Since the end of the Cold War, China's general attitude in helping to create a stable relations in Asia-Pacific has been constructive.

China, for example, has been an active and positive participant in the multilateral dialog process aimed at fostering political and diplomatic cooperation in the region.

More specifically, China has been an active player in the ARF. It has also been responsive to the idea of greater military transparency, even though this remains limited.

The publication of China's "white defense paper" in 1995, for example, is clearly a promising sign. Even though the content of the paper was criticized for its lack of transparency, it clearly demonstrates that China is beginning to feel more comfortable with the habit of dialog which will become the basis of a multilateral security arrangement in the region.

There have also been other examples which suggest China's growing conformity with the regional trend. All in all, ASEAN- China relations will definitely undergo significant improvement if the current trend of Confidence-Building Measures (CBMs) between the two parties continue to evolve.

The problem now is that ASEAN would like to see an acceleration of change in that direction.

The writer is a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta.