ASEAN and the World: An Interview with Professor Stéphanie Martel, Queen's University
Emily Wilson, External Affairs
January 12th, 2020
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is an intergovernmental organization based in South East Asia that has positioned itself as an important actor on the international stage. With China’s increasing power, the South China Sea Disputes, and the recent political unrest in Hong Kong, the region has been receiving more attention from Western nations and media outlets than ever before. As a part of The Observer’s External Affairs branch, I sat down with Stéphanie Martel, Assistant Professor in the Political Studies department at Queen’s University, to discuss ASEAN and the challenges it currently faces.
Professor Martel found herself drawn to the study of ASEAN, and Southeast Asia more broadly, through a series of fortunate accidents. Her journey began after a mentor suggested she learnt Chinese to fulfill a language requirement for her undergraduate degree in International Studies, which later led to her travels in China. Her interest in ASEAN and security organically grew out of her travels and research, which led to many of her other achievements, including her nomination as one of the Canadian representatives to the ASEAN Regional Forum’s Expert and Eminent Persons Group.
What is the ‘ASEAN way’? Is it a method of diplomacy that could be adopted by other organizations?
There are a lot of questions around what is meant by the ‘ASEAN way’. While such phrase might seem self-evident, it can also be very unclear. Generally, the ASEAN way can be conceived as a ‘diplomatic culture’, as a set of ideas and norms about how diplomacy and state-to-state interaction ought to be practiced in Southeast Asia. There is belief that the way diplomacy is practiced in Southeast Asia is different from the rest of the world. This has to do with both general principles being applied in a slightly specific way to Southeast Asia, such as non-interference and consensus building, as well as a number of norms that are taken to have a cultural origin. These norms include non-confrontation, face-saving, quiet diplomacy, a preference for informality, and consultation in building consensus. As a result, there is a very specific understanding of non-interference in this multilateral setting. Members of ASEAN conceive interference as simply commenting on each other’s domestic affairs. So, it’s not about sending troops – at the basic level, it’s about critiquing how others conduct their domestic affairs. Of course, when national interests are at stake, members do not shy away from criticizing what their neighbours are doing.
How is the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar affecting ASEAN development? What effect could this have on security in the region?
The Rohingya crisis has been one of the most significant thorns in ASEAN’s side since Myanmar acceded to the organization, but has also been a significant part of a broader ‘Myanmar problem’ for the group. The repeated human rights violations by the Myanmar military against political opponents and Aung Saan Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy drew a lot of scrutiny from the international community in the 1990s, making it very difficult for the organization to justify Myanmar’s accession to ASEAN in 1997. In contrast with the international community, ASEAN’s policy towards Myanmar developed around the concept of constructive engagement, which means that they have a very different approach to dealing with Myanmar authorities when human rights violations are concerned. Part of this difference has to do with the fact that there is a genuine belief that the best way to instigate positive change in Myanmar is to proceed carefully and apply social pressure quietly and informally. These actions would lead Myanmar to open up so that a solution could actually be implemented. The Rohingya crisis is the latest iteration of this ongoing Myanmar problem for ASEAN because it affects its credibility. The pride or the ‘face’ of states matters in the way that they handle domestic politics and foreign policy and their relationships with external partners. Yet, we need to understand that this isn’t a crisis that is going to be solved anytime soon because the conditions for a safe and dignified return of the Rohingya to Myanmar are not in place and will not be in the short term.
Is there a possibility that the political unrest in Hong Kong and China’s response to it could have an effect on ASEAN? If so, what could we expect to see?
Governments involved with ASEAN have been watching the situation in Hong Kong very closely for a number of reasons; for example, many of them are worried that similar political unrest could occur in their home countries. A number of recent reversals to authoritarian practices have been seen in Thailand, the Philippines, in Myanmar, and to some extent, Indonesia and Malaysia.
I also believe that China being perceived as an all-powerful rising regional hegemon yet having so much trouble handling protests also speaks a lot to why other Southeast Asian states have may feel they have reason to be worried. Many states obviously feel this risk, which could eventually translate to an intensification of control and restrictions of civil liberties in certain countries. For example, from what I can see from social media and my own personal contacts in Singapore, there’s been a lot of misunderstanding and confusion about what’s happening in Hong Kong, specifically concerning the motivations of the protestors. Part of this confusion stems from how Singaporeans, and other people living in authoritarian regimes, rank their priorities between order and the kind of liberties associated with liberal democracy. Yet a lot of people in Canada would not necessarily react that differently to civil unrest and protests here, as many people feel that blocking streets and bridges is very disruptive to everyday life. There is of course a variety of positions among the population of ASEAN countries on these issues, although there is not a lot of space for these views to be expressed publicly in authoritarian contexts.
In your 2017 article, “From ambiguity to contestation: discourse(s) of non-traditional security in the ASEAN community” you write, “To be considered relevant, ASEAN must provide a regional, effective and timely response to transnational threats to the security of its member states, ensure the conditions of peace among regional states both in Southeast Asia and the wider Asia-Pacific region, and protect the survival, well-being and dignity of ‘its’ people” (562). Do you believe that they have (or are on their way to having) a coherent regional security approach?
The short answer is no; I don’t think so. But, in defense of ASEAN, I don’t think it’s possible for any international institution to have a coherent approach to security these days. ASEAN self-identifies as a security community in the making, which is commonly defined as a group of states that have renounced the use of force in the way that they deal with their disputes and disagreements. However, the way ASEAN defines this objective is actually much broader than the mere absence of interstate war. Not only are they working on the inter-state war front, they also took on a broad mandate to tackle a number of different issues pertaining to the way they define security in a ‘non-traditional’ sense (i.e., piracy, illicit trafficking of all sorts, migration, cybersecurity, pandemics, natural disasters). For an organization with limited resources and a low level of trust on security matters between member countries, tackling all of these objectives at once and meeting all of these expectations is an impossible task. Yet, even if ASEAN had more resources, it would likely not be able to reconcile all of these objectives, because they are rooted in assumptions about what it is to have security and what it means to pursue it that are incompatible. This is something I explore in further detail in the book I am working on.
Stephanie Martel’s upcoming book, Enacting Security in the Asia-Pacific: Discourse in the Making of an ASEAN Community, deals with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) endeavour to become a security community at the core of a broader regional architecture in the Asia-Pacific. It develops a discourse-based approach to security community-building that helps improve our understanding of how this process currently unfolds in the Global South. The book pays special attention to how the expansion of security governance to non-state actors and non-military/transnational issues impacts security community-building. Drawing from 60+ interviews with officials, experts, and non-governmental practitioners of security governance in ASEAN and the broader Asia-Pacific, as well as participant observation, it argues that security community-building is best understood as a product of polysemy, (re)produced by an ongoing debate over the meaning of security and the boundaries of the community. The book contributes to recent literature on security community-building as practice, the role of discourse in IR, and Asia-Pacific IR.