The membership of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) is equally divided between mainland and maritime states. However, Asean’s strategic orientation has historically been towards the sea. Four out of the five founder members are maritime states. Asean was formed to stabilise the littoral of a vital sea route to prevent those countries being drawn into Cold War battlegrounds on the mainland.

Asean’s post-Cold War expansion to include all the remaining mainland states, did not modify its maritime orientation. Asean spends a lot of time discussing the South China Sea because it is a crucial issue, not just to Southeast Asia, but globally. However, Asean almost never discusses Mekong Basin issues. Yet the Mekong runs through half of Asean’s membership.

Mekong Basin forums and organisations are only loosely related to Asean. Non-riparian Asean members have minimal, if any, interest in their proceedings and generally do not participate. Riparian members sometimes try to interest the rest of Asean in Mekong issues but are met with only the pretence of polite interest. This represents a dangerous failure of strategic imagination by non-riparian Asean members. They need to discard a narrow transactional approach towards Mekong issues and think about Southeast Asia holistically as one strategic theatre.

The Mekong connects Southeast Asia with continental Asia. The river imposes a certain geopolitical coherence on an otherwise culturally and politically diverse group of mainland Southeast Asian countries and distinguishes them from the amorphous broader Asian land-mass. “Mainland Southeast Asia’ may as appropriately be called ‘Mekong Southeast Asia’. The Mekong ultimately drains into the South China Sea, linking the mainland with the maritime. The separation of land and sea is artificial and unsustainable.

One of Asean’s primary functions is to help the countries of Southeast Asia maintain autonomy amid the major power competition that is one of the inescapable realities of the region. Asean does this: First, by managing relations among its members so as to minimise the opportunity for major powers to take advantage of intraregional issues to advance their own interests. Second, and more vitally, by encouraging a balance among major powers because small countries can maintain autonomy only by navigating the interstices of major power relationships.

‘Balance’ is not to be understood as only between the United States and China. That relationship is a central reality. But US-China relations are not the whole of reality. The ‘balance’ that Asean seeks to promote is an omnidirectional and multipolar overlay over US-China relations, comprising all countries that have an interest in Southeast Asia. The most important are Japan, India, Australia, South Korea, Russia and a few European countries.

The US and China are obviously in a category apart from these countries. But an omnidirectional and multipolar balance maximises manoeuvre space for small countries far more than a simple bipolar structure, even if all the poles are not of equal weight. Asean-led forums such as the Asean Regional Forum (ARF), the East Asia Summit and the Asean Defence Ministers Meeting-plus, promote this type of balance because they give countries from outside Southeast Asia a legitimate anchor in our region.

Asean has done better at sea than on land. The situation in the South China Sea is a stalemate. The Chinese still make outrageous claims with no basis in international law. The Chinese Coastguard and Navy often behave aggressively. But China has not deterred the US and its friends and allies from operating in, through and over the South China Sea in support of a rules-based order. The recent deployment of two American aircraft carriers was a stark reminder that China cannot stop them without risking war. An increasing number of countries from around the world have expressed concerns about Chinese behaviour. The South China Sea is now an issue of international concern and no Asean claimant state can be isolated and coerced into relinquishing its claims.

This is not entirely due to Asean’s efforts. Still, Asean’s retaining a minimal formal consensus on the South China Sea, rejecting the pernicious idea that the waterway is only the concern of littoral states, and resisting Chinese pressures to avoid discussion of the issue in Asean-led forums, certainly contributed to this outcome. Strategic stalemate in the South China Sea is not ideal, but good enough.

THE GEOPOLITICS OF THE MEKONG BASIN

By contrast, the geopolitics of the Mekong Basin is stacked against Asean riparian states. Beijing’s control of the headwaters of the Mekong and the cascade of dams it has constructed or is constructing gives China significant leverage. This ought to be of concern to Asean as a whole. If China holds the throats of half of Asean in its hands, Asean ‘centrality’ – already questioned – is precarious. Mekong Basin organisations and forums do not promote the kind of omnidirectional multipolar balance that exists in Asean-led forums. How well they manage relations between Asean riparian states whose dam projects on the Mekong’s tributaries are potentially as threatening to each other as Chinese dams, is questionable.

Almost all Mekong organisations skirt the core geopolitical issue: water management. This affects a host of crucial issues, particularly food security. The Mekong River Commission deals with water management but China is not a member, and the commission is effectively powerless. International awareness of Mekong Basin issues is low, except among a limited group of specialists who talk mainly to each other.

The most active Mekong-related forum, the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC) is dominated by China. Beijing uses the LMC and its New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor which is part of the Belt and Road Initiative, to link western China with Asean. This is potentially very beneficial to Asean if this is undertaken in the context of a strategic balance and an international rules-based framework that will allow the Asean riparian states to hold their own and not be overwhelmed.

The US, Japan, South Korea and Australia have interests in the Mekong Basin. India is a contiguous continental power. Given the constraints of geography and their other priorities, these countries play only a secondary role to China. But if they better coordinate their efforts, collectively they are potentially not inconsequential. As in the South China Sea, even an asymmetrical multipolar balance can create manoeuvre space for Asean. But Asean cannot expect any of these countries to better coordinate or step up their engagement of the Mekong Basin unless Asean as a whole itself does so.

The primary strategic interest of the US, Japan, Australia, India and other countries in Southeast Asia is freedom of navigation for civilian and military vessels between the Pacific and Indian Oceans. They could well secure that interest by working among themselves or unilaterally. The US has the capability to do so alone and the other countries could well hitch a free ride. That these countries now support Asean is not a necessity but a choice. If half of Asean falls under China’s sway, taking Asean into account may not seem worth their while, and they could well make different choices.

What happened almost half a century ago in the Strait of Malacca is a cautionary tale. In 1971, Indonesia and Malaysia jointly declared that the Strait of Malacca (and Singapore) was not an international waterway. Although they recognised its use for innocent passage, this was nevertheless an assertion of sovereignty by coastal states over a vital and much-used sea corridor. In response, both the US 7th Fleet and the Soviet Union’s Pacific Fleet sent warships to transit the strait, publicly and dramatically rejecting the claim of sovereignty. And remember, they were then bitter Cold War adversaries. Indonesia and Malaysia could only watch.

Size and contiguity will always give China significant influence on the mainland. This is a fact of life. But Asean need not only helplessly wait to be marginalised. There is always something that can be done. It is axiomatic that small countries dealing with a big country should involve as many other countries as possible in that relationship.

There are three things Asean could collectively do:

First, accelerate the next phase of an Asean Economic Community (AEC) and expedite national economic reforms, to enhance and entrench Southeast Asia’s role as at least a partial alternative to China in global supply chains. In geopolitical terms, a substantive AEC and business-friendly reforms will be key anchors to keep other major countries engaged in our region. This will allow Asean to reap the benefits of proximity to China while minimising the risks to autonomy.

Second, Asean should take the lead to establish strategic coherence in the way our Dialogue Partners engage mainland and maritime Southeast Asia. Asean should encourage them to see Southeast Asia as one strategic theatre. If Asean does not do so, who will? As a start, why not discuss the geopolitical implications of Mekong Basin issues together with the South China Sea in the ARF, EAS and ADMM-plus?

Thirdly, and most crucially, Mekong-focused plurilateral and bilateral agreements should be placed in a broader framework of international law, particularly with regard to water management. The UN Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses is such a framework. But in Asean, only Vietnam is party to it. The apparent indifference of the other Asean Mekong riparian states to this UN Convention is baffling. For obvious reasons, China has not joined it and prefers to deal with such matters bilaterally. But Asean should support a broader framework of international law, just as Asean supports UNCLOS in the South China Sea.

A recent scientific study has claimed Chinese dams held back water and exacerbated drought in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand. Whether one agrees with this conclusion or not, the study at least shows that the possibility exists. The Mekong affects existential issues. And this is particularly so for the smaller mainland economies, Laos and Cambodia. No matter how good relations may presently appear, it would be extremely imprudent to trust control of existential issues entirely to another country’s leave and favour.

Seventeen countries in Eurasia have rivers that originate on Chinese territory. Many are concerned about the vulnerabilities arising from Chinese control of the headwaters of these rivers. Instead of shunning the UN Convention, Asean riparian states should join it and lead an effort to encourage these and other qualified countries to follow suit. This is a natural group of support that could potentially be mobilised in emergencies. At the very least, this effort will subject the Mekong Basin to the light of international scrutiny. Nobody needs to die of thirst in darkness. ■

Bilahari Kausikan is the former Permanent Secretary of Singapore’s Foreign Ministry. This is an edited excerpt of a presentation given at the Asean Forum on Sub-Regional Development organised by the Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hanoi on 14 July, 2020