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ASEAN does matter to Russia. A lot
Indeed, for the last several years Russia became an indispensable actor in the Asia-Pacific. Our ASEAN friends understand and appreciate a constructive stabilizing role of Russia with no hidden agenda in the region. Our philosophies of international relations, based on the principle of sovereign equality of nations, are similar. We have never lectured our ASEAN partners or tried to impose on them our values while respecting each other’s culture, history, traditions and aspirations.
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Foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) countries attend the Special ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting (SAFMM) at ASEAN Secretariat (ASEC) building, in South Jakarta on Oct. 27, 2022. Southeast Asian foreign ministers met in Jakarta to discuss the political crisis in Myanmar ahead of November's ASEAN leaders' summit, without a representative from the country's military junta. (AFP/Indonesian Foreign Ministry)
C
ompleting my mission in Jakarta as the first Russian dedicated Ambassador to ASEAN (and I was the first one co-accredited to ASEAN in 2009-2012 while I was the Russian Ambassador to Indonesia), I am trying to weigh what has been done to deepen ASEAN-Russia partnership in the past nearly five and a half years and at the same time to visualize the future of this region in the context of ASEAN and Russian interests.
Indeed, for the last several years Russia became an indispensable actor in the Asia-Pacific. Our ASEAN friends understand and appreciate a constructive stabilizing role of Russia with no hidden agenda in the region. Our philosophies of international relations, based on the principle of sovereign equality of nations, are similar. We have never lectured our ASEAN partners or tried to impose on them our values while respecting each other’s culture, history, traditions and aspirations.
Our practical cooperation reached a status of strategic partnership in 2018, fixed during the summit of our leaders in Singapore. During these years, in addition to existing areas of cooperation, we have managed to launch and actively promote new ones, including consultations of the high representatives for security issues, dialogue on ICT security-related issues, meetings of tourism ministers and others. In the end of 2021 we successfully held the first ASEAN-Russia naval exercises in the Indonesian territorial waters. In 2022 we organized a number of events within the framework of the ASEAN-Russia Year of Scientific and Technical Cooperation. Dozens of joint projects were implemented and financed by Russia in various spheres ranging from agriculture to training of ASEAN health experts and specialists of law-enforcement agencies. We continued to develop practical cooperation between ASEAN and Eurasian Economic Union as well as with Shanghai Cooperation Organization, thus moving the processes of integration across the huge Eurasian continent. The potential benefits of this movement, initiated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, for all participants are difficult to overestimate.
We firmly believe that ASEAN-centered mechanisms of cooperation, created in the last 55 years and based on the principles of equality, mutual respect and constructive engagement, including the EAS, ARF and ADMM-Plus, played the pivotal role in stabilizing the region, balancing the interests of all big players and promoting mutual trust, which are prerequisites of the Asia-Pacific phenomenon in becoming the main engine of the global economic growth. For many decades there were no hot military conflicts in the region. Largely it is the merit of ASEAN wisdom and its leading role in shaping multilateral cooperation here. That is why Russia strongly supports ASEAN centrality in the region not only in words but in deeds.
Back in 2010, then Secretary-General of ASEAN Surin Pitsuwan said: “If ASEAN succeeds in its vision and mission, at least the world will have one less region to worry about. That is the contribution of ASEAN: the region can take care of itself.” Good words! But what worries me is that since recently not everybody believes in these words, thinking that without external “help” and “values” (or rather domination), the regional countries themselves cannot do it “properly”. What is the reason for this thinking? In my view, the deep motivation of these thinkers is only one: they cannot tolerate the swift movement of the world toward multipolarity, the rise of new centers of growth and independent policy inconsistent with the project of globalization headed by the United States. The concept of “American leadership” professed for the last several decades is no longer consistent with realities. Washington is desperately trying to eradicate this contradiction by using all its might, introducing so called “rules-based order” to substitute international law and ruling its satellites in Europe and the Asia-Pacific with an iron hand.
That is why, under the cover of “Free and Open Indo-Pacific [FOIP]” slogans, NATO pronounces its “global responsibility” with a special accent on the “Indo-Pacific” region (and past “achievements” of NATO in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and elsewhere are very well-known) and minilateral bloc-type mechanisms like AUKUS, as alternative to ASEAN, are being created.
If you attribute this analysis to my ill imagination read at least some ideas of Asian, American and European think tanks and experts: “Cooperation between South Korea, Japan and NATO sends a message of deterrence…Joint military exercises involving NATO and East Asian countries could be held in the Indo-Pacific or in Europe…NATO and the Far Eastern countries could establish an informal military alliance similar to the Quad” (Chonnam National University, ROK, 06.01.23); “The Indo-Pacific is associated with the logic of bloc diplomacy” (Sejong Institute, ROK, 30.12.22); “The US-Japan alliance is shifting to a war footing” (“War on the Rocks”, US, 12.01.23); “Neither the hub-and-spokes system nor ASEAN’s various security forums have created a permanently stable foundation for security in Asia. As an alternative, a web of partnerships involving a number of countries is emerging” (German Institute for International and Security Affairs, 31.12.22); “US is building a more lethal force posture in the Indo-Pacific as part of efforts to make sure China doesn’t dominate the region” (US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, The Japan Times, 21.12.22). Not enough? You can find much more of it, including in the official statements of Western countries.
