Abstract
This chapter examines ASEANs’ response to the Vietnamese military invasion of Cambodia between 1978 and 1991. Despite the fact that ASEAN began as an economic and cultural cooperative entity in 1967, the primary successes of its first decade lay in its providing a means whereby Member States could manage intraregional disputes and the stresses of the Cold War. Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia constituted a turning point in the Association’s willingness to assume leadership to address conventional security threats. The conflict in Cambodia was perceived as a genuine security threat to ASEAN Member States and to the political and economic goals of the organization. ASEAN employed diplomacy to contain Vietnamese influence in Cambodia while seeking to manage fractious politics within Cambodia and ASEAN itself, laying the foundation for a nascent security community in Southeast Asia.
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Notes
- 1.
Indonesia challenged the legitimacy of the newly independent Malaysia during this period of coercive diplomacy referred to as Konfrontasi (Confrontation).
- 2.
Sabah, formerly British North Borneo, is a 29,000-square-mile tract of territory that presently constitutes the northeastern tip of Malaysia. It was a valuable territory—rich in oil, hemp, timber, rubber, tobacco, and fisheries. A 1963 census put Sabah’s population at 809,737, between 25,000 and 50,000 of whom were Filipino or of Philippine origin. See the New York Times, September 28, 1968, 3:2.
Intraregional tensions had foiled earlier attempts at regional cooperation in Southeast Asia. The Association of South Asia (ASA), established in 1961, had collapsed over the Philippines’ claim to Sabah which opted to join the Malay federation. ASA was followed by MAPHILINDO, an acronym for a loose confederation of the three independent states of Malay ethnicity (Indonesia, Malaya, and the Philippines), that never quite achieved organizational status. The Konfrontasi between Indonesia and Malaysia precipitated the demise of MAPHILINDO.
- 3.
Ethnicity contributed to these tensions; Malay-Muslim Indonesia and Malaysia distrusted Chinese-dominated Singapore (Acharya 2001, 48, 59).
- 4.
Fifield (1979, 1200) points out that the Bangkok Declaration was a declaration of intent rather than a binding treaty. The new regional organization did not lack for human and natural resources. In 1975, the region exported 83 percent of the world’s natural rubber and abaca fiber, 84 percent of palm oil, 73 percent of the tin, and 76 percent of the world’s coconut products, in addition to other mining and agricultural products. Although rich in resources, the new economic organization suffered many limitations common to economic cooperative schemes among less developed countries. The New York Times (January 18, 1968, 60:3) pessimistically pointed out that the Member States’ economies were competitive rather than complementary, were overly dependent on primary commodity exports, and had nonconvertible currencies. At the time of their union, less than 21 percent of the ASEAN countries’ trade was with each other. In addition, Association Members lacked a common language.
- 5.
After Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia, the Soviet Union increased its military presence in Indochina. At one point, 16 Soviet ships were stationed at Cam Ranh Bay, including four combat surface vessels (including the carrier Minsk), two mine sweepers, and eight supply ships. It was also generally believed that Soviet aircrafts (e.g. the TU-95D Bear reconnaissance aircraft) were using Cam Ranh Bay. The aircraft carrier allowed the Soviet Union to project power into the South China Sea and the Straits of Malacca (Lau 1982, 559).
- 6.
An anonymous reviewer provides a slightly different assessment: “Indonesia often felt sidelined during this conflict and that Thailand had hijacked ASEAN to serve its own ends. Indonesia did see ASEAN as its vehicle and was frustrated that Thailand was calling the shots. ASEAN’s decision to make Indonesia the ‘interlocutor’ could be seen as throwing a bone to Indonesia rather than ‘confirming’ its political role.”
- 7.
This discussion draws heavily upon Dennis and Brown (2003, 227–248).
- 8.
The quote is: “Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty.” Video of the address is available at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library website: https://www.jfklibrary.org/, last accessed 1/8/17.
- 9.
The post-Cold War shifting of power relationships among China, Japan, Russia, and the United States generated uncertainty and concern. The reduced presence of Russia and the United States in the region portended a power vacuum, China’s military modernization threatened an arms race, and there was concern that these changes might tempt Japan to revamp its predominantly defensive military posture. In addition to these interstate concerns, scholars identified some 57 minorities in East, South, and Southeast Asia whose grievances might challenge states’ domestic tranquility. Nontraditional security threats also claimed Member States’ attention: human rights violations, poverty, environmental degradation, terrorism, and transnational crime including illegal movement of peoples, drugs, and piracy. These challenges convinced ASEAN and other parties of the need for new security arrangements for the region. Australia and Canada proposed a kind of Conference on Security and Cooperation in Asia, but the ASEAN states rejected this idea as “too European.” What emerged instead was the new ARF (Peck 1998, 173–175). An anonymous reviewer adds this assessment: “ASEAN was …pushed into creating the ARF. It really did not want to do so, but it became apparent that the pressure to have a regional security organization was coming from many external actors and ASEAN feared being sidelined if it did not act to take the initiative.”
- 10.
In 2017, ARF participants include the ten ASEAN Member States, Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, the People’s Republic of China, East Timor, the EU, India, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Russia, Sri Lanka, and the United States.
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Brown, M.L. (2018). The 1978–1991 Association of Southeast Asian Nations-Vietnam Standoff. In: Regional Economic Organizations and Conventional Security Challenges. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70533-0_3
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