ASEAN REGIONAL FORUM (ARF)
WEEK 12 : ASEAN REGIONAL FORUM (ARF)
First, the word forum can be describing as the place,
group or situation in which people can exchange the ideas. It also discusses
the issues especially on the public issues. Then, Asean Regional Forum or AFR
can be referring as the platform of discussion or dialog. It was established in
1994 which is at the inaugural meeting of the ARF that was held in Bangkok.
Before that, the AFR was agreeing to establish during the Twenty-Sixth ASEAN Ministerial
Meeting and Post Ministerial Conference, which were held in Singapore on 23-25
July 1993.
Hegemonic
Disputes and the Limits of the ASEAN Regional Forum
“WHAT”
In
this article we will expose and how we learn about theoretical and framework
the inconsistent of the ASEAN Regional Forum in resolving the South China Sea.
According to neoliberal constructivists, rule-based institutions engaging in
international politics are totally able to encourage state cooperation.
Individual states can learn how to cooperate with other states in international
systems via past experience in making choices which they only have limited
control over the outcomes. By using neoliberal approach, the ASEAN nations and
China aimed to meet their mutual interests in the South China Sea by making the
ARF. After armed wars during the 1970s, the ASEAN countries agreed to create
the ARF with the goal of resolving common regional security issues. As a
collective identity, the constructivists had emphasis on "the ASEAN
way"11 or by use sustainable security community. We also realize that most
of the nations are afraid to continue participate in these international
organizations as ARF has not demonstrated constant success in handling South
China Sea problem. The neoliberal and constructivist perspectives are fail to
explain regarding these gaps. Even during the early 1990s, when the ARF
effectively guided China to a multilateral framework, various military disputes
occurred between China and Vietnam, China and the Philippines, and Vietnam and
the Philippines. Furthermore, the outcomes of these bilateral agreements were
insufficient to overcome future disputes from arising. In this climate, any
global institution would be the result of disputes between powerful nations.
Multilateralism is a hegemonic operational that serves to maintain and
rationalize hegemonic rule which stronger nations emphasize their own
particular interests before having to check the interests of their competitors
and the potential of meaningful collaboration through an international agency
is minimal. The US has frequently strived to prevent the creation of Chinese
hegemony in the area by rallying neighboring nations and sustaining the
region's current power balance. There are two types of national interests which
are expansionary interests and conservative interests.
Prior
to 1997, the ARF has lacked standing operations and was only a "dialogue
space" with no ability to respond to regional issues. However, during a
summit conference in December 1997, China and the ASEAN members agreed to form
a strategy in resolving South China Sea conflicts. During the 1995 ASEAN-China
conference, the ASEAN members had underlined their worries about China's
aggressive moves in Mischief Reef. Foreign ministers from ASEAN countries and
China's vice foreign minister successfully reached a settlement in November
2002. Furthermore, during the 2010 ARF meeting, Clinton highlighted the
importance of the South China Sea region to US country's interests and
suggested the creation of a collaborative diplomacy mechanism for the peaceful
settlement for diverse territorial issues. Clinton also highlighted that free
of navigation was a US key focus and stated that the US will obey international
law in the South China Sea. In sum, the United States started to engage in the
ARF more actively than ever before in mid-2000s in order to fulfill its
objectives of restraining Chinese advancements in Southeast Asia and expanding
the existing US power in the region.
“HOW”
China
was a passive participant in multilateral collaborative structures during the
early stages of the ARF. This institution was primarily viewed by China as a
tool used by the United States to check its own nation's progress. When the
ASEAN states adopted the 1992 ASEAN Declaration on the South China Sea, China
responded by stating that in the case of South China Sea disputes, a bilateral
framework would be preferable to a multilateral one. Nevertheless, in 1997,
China began to take an active interest in multilateralism35, agreeing to the
Joint Statement of the ASEAN Summit Meeting of Member States. Since 1997, China
has taken a more active role in the ARF and pursued discussions about the South
China Sea that would lead in a more favorable direction for itself.
Participating in the ARF had a number of advantages for China. First can be
seen when China needed to maintain friendly relations with other countries in
order to increase its influence in the region and achieve world power status.
During mid-1990s, Chinese leaders significantly altered their foreign policy to
one that expanded its regional influence through multilateral channels, such as
joining the World Trade Organization, a multilateral economic organization and China's
main objective was to limit US and Japanese influence in the region through
multilateral collaboration within the region, reducing neighboring countries'
mistrust of China, and improving their overall international relations. Furthermore,
post-Cold War changes and China's internal goal of expanding its national
interests through economic reform and the open market resulted in radical
shifts in China's attitude toward its neighbors in order to address their
fears. Second, China stated that by participating in multilateral
organizations, it would have a stronger voice and better chances of pursuing
its national interests. Chinese policymakers attempted to become more skilled
agents in their respective international political stages, believing that their
country's participation in multilateral channels would be a useful tool in
protecting their national interests. As an outcome, China's participation in
international organizations has continuously grown since the 1980s, reaching
60% of that of the United States by 1996. Their areas of participation also
varied, with them taking part in political, military, and economic avenues as
well as economic ones. Third, as China prioritized energy security as a key
national policy in its economic development plans, the South China Sea emerged
as a critical area. Chinese policymakers, in particular, emphasized the
importance of diversifying energy sources and supplies, and announced that they
would engage more actively in the international energy market. Because
resolving the South China Sea disputes was not critical to US interests at the
time, the US used the hub-and-spoke alliance structure as a hedge against an
undesirable order emerging in the region. The US believed that multilateralism,
such as the ARF, could not replace existing US bilateral alliances and would
pursue an agenda unrelated to its interests, so it participated far more
passively. This point is illustrated by the United States' refusal to grant the
Philippines' request to mediate South China Sea disputes in 1999.
The
most major factors for increased US participation in the ARF were first, the US
was threatened by post-9/11 and Chinese expansion in the region and wanted to
preserve its position as the supreme regional power in Asia and second, the US
sought to secure energy sources critical to its continued economic power
development and an easily accessible sea route to the East Asian market. Since
China's involvement in the 2002 Declaration on the Code of Conduct in the South
China Sea, armed conflicts in the South China Sea have dropped drastically, and
favorable attitudes toward China have begun to settle among ASEAN states.
However, as cooperation among region states increased on the basis of China's
2002 agreement, the US began to feel threatened by this increased Chinese
interest in the South China Sea region. This prompted the US to revise its
policy priorities in Southeast Asia, as well as its participation strategies
with the ARF. Several indicators pointed to these US policy changes regarding
their regional hegemony in Southeast Asia during the mid- to late-2000s. In its
2006 national strategy report, the second Bush administration openly stated
that China was a threat to its international system. 53 The Bush administration
declared that one of its major national security goals was to prevent the
emergence of a new superpower capable of confronting the United States, as well
as to keep a critical security region out of the hands of another significant
socioeconomically viable state. Due to its massive military expenditures and
budget, the United States concluded that China's military modernization had
progressed to the point where it could endanger Asian security. To counter
China's advance toward the South China Sea, the Bush administration attempted
to strengthen military ties with Singapore, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Aside
from the political reason of maintaining regional hegemony by countering
Chinese advances, there was an economic reason for the US' more active approach
which is US needed to secure energy resources for the same reasons as China.
Currently, the United States is the world's largest energy consumer, despite
having only 5% of the world's population but consuming 25% of the world's
energy. Because resource security was as important to China as it was to the
US, it was unavoidable that the two countries would clash. Because the
advantages sought by the two most heavily energy-consuming countries are
relative rather than absolute, their competitive clashes over resource
acquisition have erupted not only in the South China Sea but all over the
world, including Central Asia and Africa. The United States became acutely
aware that China's acquisition of energy meant not only economic development
for the country, but also the potential emergence of an economic and security
threat.
FACTORS
THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE ASEAN REGIONAL FORUM
First,
the factor in the formation of the ASEAN Regional Forum is Post Cold War
security in ASEAN. Following the end of the Cold War, the communist influence
in the region continues to have an impact on the ASEAN countries. Because most
of the ASEAN members are still trying to develop their countries during that
time period and as a result of the effects of colonization, Because of the
communist threat, the ASEAN countries require some level of protection as well
as a strong military power in order to combat it. ASEAN is attempting to
establish positive relationships and cooperative relationships with other
countries. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) encompasses not only Southeast Asia
but also the Asia-Pacific region as a whole. ASEAN is able to engage with world
great powers such as the United States, Japan, Russia, and China through the
ASEAN Regional Forum, and this action will also contribute to the preservation
of the regional balance of power. Cooperation between minor powers such as the
ASEAN member states and major powers such as the United States can aid in the
improvement of the security environment in the region. As we all know, the
United States is one of the countries with significant military capability. As
a result, the ARF is also one of the means by which the United States military
engagement in the region can be maintained in order to maintain peace,
security, and also to prevent any threat from emerging in the region.
Second,
Human Trafficking is a factor in the formation of the ASEAN Regional Forum.
Human trafficking threatens human, national, and international security.
Globalization has also played a significant role in the growth of human
trafficking. The ASEAN Regional Forum is a good place to start. The most common
forms of trafficking in the state are labor, sex, and child. The human
trafficking labor industry is the largest source of traffic people in the
Southeast Asia region. According to the International Organization for
Migration (IOM), many Southeast Asian victims migrate in search of paid
employment but end up forced to work in fishing, agriculture, construction, and
domestic service (IOM). According to the US Department of State's 2018
Trafficking in Persons Report, the majority of these victims are men who are
unable to pay the high fees charged by unlicensed brokers and recruiters. More than 85 percent of victims were trafficked from
within the region, according to the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons
2016. Furthermore, Domestic servitude and other forms of forced labor affect
females as well. They come from remote, impoverished communities. Girls and
women are forced into marriage all over the Mekong region, from Cambodia to
Myanmar to Vietnam. Online child pornography, including live streaming of child
sexual abuse, is linked to the rise in child trafficking in the region. Some of
the worst human rights abuses and the highest rates of human trafficking can be
found in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, China, and India (US State Department). The
ASEAN Human Rights Declaration is the ASEAN effort to protect human rights and
freedom. Hence, human trafficking become an issue that can threaten the
security of the country. The establishment of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)
has shown the responsibility and concern of ASEAN toward the security issues
that it faces today.
Following
that, there will be disagreements between states. Every state, as we all know,
has its own geographical region. The territory is an essential factor for any
state since it may add to the legitimacy of the state's authority, which causes
the state to compete for control over it. There are several issues or conflicts
that arise amongst the members of the ASEAN community. The conflict between the
two countries is the most talked-about topic. Whenever an ASEAN member is vying
for and battling for territory that has the potential to be beneficial in terms
of economic development. For example, the conflict between China and the
Philippines over the rights to the South China Sea, also known as the Spratly
Islands, is a good illustration. The necessity for a venue for discussion and
debate among the many states involved in order to achieve a peaceful conclusion
must be addressed by the international community.
CONCLUSION
As
conclusion, ASEAN ARF has given many achievements to countries involved plus
the ARF Minister on 8 June 2003 has declared that it gives a great diversity of
its membership. Moreover, this forum has contributed maintenance of peace,
security, and cooperation in the region. In fact, ARF has become useful as a
venue for multilateral and bilateral dialogue. Besides that, ARF member of
countries involved also has discussed security issues in a multilateral setting
which means the country did not only care about their country but also the
region. Thus, these members of countries can do policy regarding security that
involves the region where has collective agreement. Even though, this forum has
achieved many achievements, but some researchers have identified that the
achievements of ARF are inconsistent. It is because this ARF was established to
solve South China Sea disputes. Hence, the members of countries involved feel
threatened due to the disputes. However, ARF might be effective if reduce the
sense of mutual threat by form official and unofficial codes of conduct.
Although it is having limited influence and superficial but can give guide to
members of countries to not only focus on South China disputes but achieve
objectives of ARF.
Figure
shows China’s Broken U-Shaped Line in South China Sea.
References
Hill, K. (2011). ASEAN
Regional Forum (ARF). Retrieved from Australian Government : https://www.dfat.gov.au/international-relations/regional-architecture/asean-regional-forum-arf
Unit, A. (2004,
June 26). ASEAN Regional Forum. Retrieved from ASEAN Regional Forum:
https://aseanregionalforum.asean.org/about-arf/
Washun, J., &
Soo A, C. (2014). Hegemonic Disputes and the Limits of. Pacific Focus:
Inha Journal of International Studies, 237-259.
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