NVDB005_-_CH_3.008._Dual_Challenges_of_Indonesia_-_Andrew_W._Mantong-3

Diplomatic Briefing — KAS Cambodia and CICP

46 — DP Vol. 05

Dual Challenges of Indonesia’s ASEAN Chairmanship in 2023

boundaries between economic and security affairs. The establishment of AUKUS and the Quad may also demonstrate a trend of great powers relying more on minilateral arrangement outside of regional processes such as the East Asia Summit and the ASEAN Regional Forum. Embedded in Jakarta’s vision to navigate these forums is a belief that focusing on economic issues will invite more cooperative gestures than focusing on security interests. While the regional architecture is currently diversified between bilateral, minilateral, and regional measures, overlapping agendas will further test such a belief in at least two ways.

Jakarta will need to anticipate how political-security interests may lurk behind economic proposals. An attempt to secure greater supply chain cooperation, for example, could involve the question of how to reshore industry and manage the disruption caused should maritime clashes occur between great powers. Applying new technologies as well as labor and environ- mental standards both in industry and infrastructure development may also have some political conse- quences that could in turn divide ASEAN countries according to different sentiments.

Jakarta will need to find an effective formula not only to revitalize but also to secure the relevance of an ASEAN-driven forum. In doing so, Jakarta will also need to deal with domestic sceptics of ASEAN effectiveness in dealing with strategic issues in the region, including the South China Sea disputes and the possible cross- strait clash between China and Taiwan.

Second, it should be noted that Indonesia is one of the more recent countries to ratify the ASEAN Charter. When the Indonesian parliament ratified the ASEAN Charter in 2008, it formally stipulated in the law adopting it that the ratification was conditional on sustained efforts towards the eventual realization of the “promotion and protection of human rights by an effectively functioning ASEAN human rights body, enforcement of sanctions towards serious breaches and non-compliance against the (ASEAN) Charter including suspension of rights to membership, and the promotion of societal participation in ASEAN activ- ities”. The 2021 military coup in Myanmar coupled with the continuing political and humanitarian crisis in the country is a significant test to this condition.

Domestic stakeholders could prove increasingly impatient about how slow progress is being made in ASEAN given the ASEAN Five Point Consensus and the on the ground reality in Myanmar today. Jakarta will hope that inclusive dialogue is immediately forth- coming between the Tatmadaw and contending forces in Myanmar’s contemporary political space. Should the Junta hold an election next year without prior dialogue and humanitarian pause to allow for the impartial delivery of assistance to the Myanmar people, Indonesia will face a difficult political question regarding ASEAN relevance, both at home and abroad, during its Chairmanship of ASEAN in 2023.