In the 21st century, the South China Sea has become one of the most strategic and conflict-prone regions. This is due to the traditional security perspective that the South China Sea area as an important part of the Asia-Pacific.
Jakarta, IO – In the 21st century, the South China Sea has become one of the most strategic and conflict-prone regions. This is due to the traditional security perspective that the South China Sea area as an important part of the Asia-Pacific region is likely to be contested by several countries, which can result in tensions between countries. This is emphasized by Mikael Weissmann in (Weissmann, 2015) that this region has long been predicted as a potential place to become a conflict area because of its strategic position in terms of geography and geopolitics.
The LCS, estimated to have reserves of eleven billion barrels of petroleum, five trillion cubic meters of natural gas, and about ten percent of the world’s fish population lives in this region. Apart from being a potentially large extractive resource, the LCS also acts as a strategic trade corridor used to transport commodities worth $5.3 trillion annually. Its strategic geographical position makes the LCS an ideal location for military bases. China itself has used several islands in the SCS region as transit points for their navy, this action has caused concern among countries bordering the SCS, especially Southeast Asian countries (Darmawan & Kuncoro, 2019).
This situation is a challenge for ASEAN in particular, which acts as a forum for cooperation for its ten members. In responding to the South China Sea issue, ASEAN has an important role as a Balance of Power in the midst of many foreign interests that continue to threaten the region. ASEAN’s attitude is in line with the main purpose of its formation, where the unity stands on the strong aspirations of its founders to create a peaceful, secure, stable, and prosperous Southeast Asian region (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia, 2015).
Recognizing the speed of change, ASEAN, which is the center of attention amid various interests in the SCS, has agreed to emphasize three pillars as a proactive measure to respond to geostrategic changes and create stability in the SCS region. The three pillars include (Pangemanan et al., 2021):
1. ASEAN Political and Security Community;
2. ASEAN Economic Community; dan
3. ASEAN Sosio-Cultural Community.
The three pillars are an integral part of the ASEAN Community framework, which is the main vision pursued by ASEAN today. The ASEAN Community reflects efforts to build and enhance the integration process, which aims to enable people in the region to enjoy fundamental human rights and freedoms, improve their quality of life, and benefit from community development. It also seeks to strengthen a sense of solidarity and shared identity, guided by the goals and principles contained in the ASEAN Charter (Pangemanan et al.,2021). However, in the face of the presence of great powers operating in the South China Sea, ASEAN uses a diplomatic approach within the framework of the ASEAN Political and Security Community (APSC), known as defense diplomacy. The concept has evolved rapidly since the end of the Cold War.
According to Andrew Cottey and Anthony Forster, defense diplomacy is a form of diplomacy that aims to improve relations and prevent potential conflicts with parties considered as threats, as well as learn lessons from other parties (Cottey & Forster, 2013). According to (Chalid et al., 2016) through APSC, it is expected that member countries and their residents are able to live together harmoniously in a democratic atmosphere. The concept of democracy that promotes transparency is expected to organize various forms of interaction between actors, both state and non-state, in various aspects of international, cross-country, and global relations.
CHINA’S RISING
Chinese leaders have long voiced the view that the world is heading toward a multipolar state, in which America’s unipolarity will decline in the long run. Since 2008, they began to feel that the United States was in a faster decline than they had predicted, while China was climbing higher. Significant changes in power shifts in China’s favor were noted at the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Working Conference on Foreign Affairs held in July 2009. The conference emphasized the importance of Chinese soft power, while still following the views of Deng Xiaoping. This view is known for its principle of “Taoguang Yanghui (low profile), and emphasizes more on “getting something accomplished.” In other words, the Conference encouraged a Chinese foreign policy that was more proactive than assertive (Yahuda, 2013). This was certainly before Xi Jinping came to power.
After the 19th Communist Party Congress in October 2017, there were frequent statements that Mao Zedong liberated China, Deng Xiaoping made China prosperous, and now Xi Jinping made China strong. For nearly four decades, rapid economic growth has made China more confident and more open to becoming a model worth following. At the 19th Party Congress, a meeting held twice in a decade to establish new leaders and future policy directions, Chinese President Xi Jinping declared that the country had entered a “new era” and declared that the time had come for China to become a “center stage in the world” (Smith, 2018).
In October 2013, the CCP held a working forum focusing on peripheral diplomacy, the first to specifically address peripheral diplomacy since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. The forum was attended by seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the country’s most influential decision-making body, as well as State Councillors, various bodies of the Central Committee, and Chinese ambassadors assigned to neighboring countries. At the forum, Chinese President Xi Jinping presented his vision for Asia’s future, “a Community of Common Destiny.” (Smith, 2018).
The economic foundation for the new regional order, centered on China, is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It was first announced by Xi Jinping in a speech in September 2013 at Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan. BRI is a series of major infrastructure projects, such as oil and gas pipelines, seaports, hydroelectric dams, airports, and railway lines, spread across Southeast Asian countries, Central and South Asia, North Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. This ambitious geopolitical project is now a core element in China’s foreign economic policy, in addition to linking the interests of developing countries with China’s domestic market, Beijing also receives significant benefits, namely the power to promote new global norms (Zhang, 2018).
While the Chinese leader refers to the Construction of a Community of Common Destiny (CCD) as a comprehensive view of the world involving both developed and developing countries, in reality, the situation is more complex. China tends to apply the CCD concept specifically to developing countries and multilateral institutions. During visits to developing countries, President Xi often uses this concept, calling for the establishment of CCDs between China and those countries in regions such as Africa, Asia, and Latin America (Zhang, 2018). On his first state trip to the Pacific region in November 2014, Xi Jinping affirmed China’s readiness to support joint development and prosperity with small island states.
David Arase in (Arase, 2016) describes the organizational structure of BRI on the following four aspects: (a) BRI does not go through a multilateral negotiation process, but is determined through bilateral negotiations between China and each country involved; (b) the BRI is not based on liberalization agreements that remove trade-related legal barriers, but rather facilitates trade through specific infrastructure development and coordination of state development policies; (c) Its qualifications and membership rules are not objective and non-discriminatory, but rather depend on negotiations with China on a case-by-case basis; and (d) the BRI does not rely on free market principles and private initiatives, but rather on national development plans and policy coordination between countries.