ASEAN and the South China Sea: Constraints and Pathways – Academia

Recent years have seen an increase in incidents, and China’s assertiveness has drawn reactions from parties concerned about the security and stability of free and open access to the SCS.

Given such challenges, what can ASEAN do to manage security and stability in the SCS if there is an open conflict involving one or more ASEAN member states?

Before further exploring possible pathways for ASEAN, it is worth first identifying the limits and constraints to any collective ASEAN measure.

First, ASEAN is not a military alliance. This means that armed conflicts involving one or more members with a non-ASEAN party do not require the involvement of all ASEAN member states. Its members are free to support, engage in, or distance themselves from such conflict individually. ASEAN also has no requirement that the bloc collectively provide political and/or military support to a member that is party to a conflict.

Second, ASEAN does not have a common foreign policy or security/defense platform. Therefore, it is not necessarily easy for its member states to provide collective support to other members who are engaged in open conflict with non-ASEAN parties.

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These are the two main limitations and constraints on ASEAN’s foreign policy and security/defense arrangements that the bloc’s members have deliberately and consciously put in place.