At these complicated crossroads, ASEAN is forced to act very carefully. Though ASEAN was virtually unable to develop an effective approach that could consolidate the interests of great powers, it has not lost the role of a central negotiating platform in the region. In the context of the changes that have taken place over the past decade, this is an achievement in itself. And although the Association was unable to elaborate on instrumental links between its prospective plans and the Belt and Road Initiative, it was able to formulate its Indo-Pacific Vision50, which is also notable success.
In the economic sphere, due to the different level of economic development of its member countries, ASEAN could not ensure completely free movement of goods, services and capital in Southeast Asia. At the same time, the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community has spurred the launch of specific projects to strengthen infrastructure interconnectivity.
These factors suggest that the association has been relatively successful in coping with the decade-long challenges and associated risks which have been steadily rising. At this juncture, the role of chairmanship of a specific country, in terms of both its priorities and possibilities to translate them into reality, comes to the fore.
The Vietnam Perspective
Since 2010, Vietnam has been one of the most active ASEAN member countries in promoting the maintenance of ASEAN’s internal solidarity, regional resilience, common values, standards of conduct, as well as strengthening its central role in the Asia-Pacific multilateralism.
Beside the already discussed expansion of the EAS and the launch of ADMM Plus, Hanoi continued to engage non-regional partners in the dialogue in order to keep the Southeast Asian security challenges manageable. For example, Vietnam promoted ASEAN joint maritime drills with China in 2018 and with the United States in 2019. In the same strain, Hanoi is likely to make efforts to conduct similar drills with Russia in the year of its chairmanship51.
On the South China Sea issue, Vietnam’s policy aimed to achieve a consensus within ASEAN, as well as between ASEAN and its extra-regional partners. As a result, in May 2014, the foreign ministers of ASEAN issued a separate Statement on the South China Sea, for the first time since 199252.
The results of Vietnam’s involvement in the economic regionalism are dubious. In line with creating a network of free trade agreements with partners around the world, Hanoi, although it has markedly increased the volume of trade with nine partners in the Association, in percentage terms the ASEAN contribution to Vietnam’s foreign trade decreased from 18.1% to 11.3%, while the share of the East Asia Summit countries increased from 71.6% to 75% (See Table 1). But as practice demonstrates, for extra-regional states an FTA regime with Vietnam often becomes the first step for launching negotiations between non-regional partners with other ASEAN states and eventually for concluding an FTA with the Association.
Table 1. VIETNAM’S TRADE WITH EAS STATES IN 2009 AND 201953
Increased investment from both ASEAN and EAS members in Vietnam’s economy deserves mentioning. While in 2009 the USA ($9.8 billion), Cayman Islands ($2.2 billion) and Samoa ($1.7 billion) were leaders in terms of registered FDI, ten years later the list of major investors looked like this: the Republic of Korea ($7.9 billion), Hong Kong ($7.9 billion), Singapore ($4.5 billion), Japan ($4.1 billion), China ($ 4.1 billion)54.
In general, Vietnam’s contribution to ASEAN is more conspicuous in the political rather than in the economic sphere. Primarily, this is predetermined by objective constraints, mainly in the infrastructure development and the institutional spheres, the ASEAN connectivity narrative is encountering. Also, in the short-term perspective for Vietnam to promote economic cooperation with non-ASEAN partners is likely to be more profitable than within ASEAN. At the same time, the Association will remain the key SRV’s foreign policy direction as it finds the strongest resonance with Vietnam’s long-term interests.
Assessing Srv’s 2020 Priorities
This year, Vietnam intends to significantly increase ASEAN’s international stature. The attention is focused on ASEAN internal development issues with an emphasis on the strategic goal – the formation of the three-pillar integrated Community. As the leadership of the country has repeatedly emphasized, Hanoi will continue to build on the achievements of previous chairmanships and implement the tasks set in the “ASEAN Community Vision 2025” 55.
The slogan of the Chairmanship is “Cohesive and responsive”, which, along with even greater solidarity of ASEAN member countries, also implies an increase of resistance to the regional and global challenges, and the ability to capitalize on the emerging opportunities.
In this context, the Vietnamese Chairmanship identified the following priorities:
1. Increasing the Association’s contribution to maintaining peace, security and stability in the region by strengthening intra-ASEAN solidarity and unity, mutual support, coordination of positions on regional and international issues.
2. Deepening interconnectivity and economic integration – both within the Association and with external partners. Enhancing the ability to adapt to the changes brought about by the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
3. Strengthening the ASEAN identity through the formation of common values, increasing the awareness of the population about ASEAN, promoting the image of the ASEAN Community.
4. Development of the Association’s global ties in the interests of peace, stability and sustainable development. Increasing contribution to the formation of a new regional and global architecture, as well as rules of conduct.
5. Expanding the institutional capacities and effectiveness of ASEAN through appropriate reforms, improvement of existing and creation of new standards56.
Considering the present-day international milieu in Southeast Asia and beyond, Vietnam is not interested in increasing tensions in the South China Sea, which means it is unlikely to initiate any new anti-Chinese step (which, however, does not mean that Hanoi will not respond to possible provocations of Beijing). An ideal option for Hanoi is to maintain the balance achieved earlier, to avoid new contradictions, and to complete the second reading of the draft Code of Conduct. In a similar vein, the Vietnamese presidency will apparently adhere to a cautious approach to other regional issues, in particular the Rohingya problem in Myanmar.
In the context of the promotion of diverse Indo-Pacific strategies by non-regional countries, as well as the actual consolidation of “Indo-Pacific” terms in the regional political vocabulary, it is unlikely that the Vietnamese chairmanship will be free from these geographical neologisms. Consequently, Hanoi will probably continue to promote the ASEAN’s “Indo-Pacific Outlook”. This allows the association, on the one hand, not to go against the present-day political mainstream, and on the other, to defend its own agenda.
Importantly, from the multilateral perspective Hanoi has ample chances to repeat its ten-year old success story. This can be achieved both by inviting new non-regional partners into ASEAN-led discussions in various statuses, and by intensifying contacts with ASEAN’s existing dialogue partners.
Vietnam also plans to make the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) one of the main achievements of its chairmanship – with or without India. This was repeatedly stated by the leadership of the Ministry of Industry