This week has apparently delivered such a bonanza of foreign policy goodies for the Albanese government it’s a wonder it doesn’t put up its hand to host more ASEAN summits.
From a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Vietnam, elevated ties with The Philippines, the region’s enthusiastic reception for Australia’s $2bn investment finance facility and Singapore’s unambiguous support for AUKUS, Canberra has reaped dividends from this week’s talkfest.
While most of the headline announcements are, of course, the result of years of effort, there’s no denying the timeliness of this week’s Melbourne event as a friendly neighbourhood reminder that Australia really is committed to Southeast Asia.
The last Australia-hosted ASEAN summit was in 2018 – before AUKUS, before Gaza and before our relationship with China took a decisive turn for the worse. Since then, regional perspectives on Australia have started to slip back into old “US deputy sheriff” tropes, particularly as the “rules-based international order” has come under intense questioning in neighbouring Muslim countries amid Gaza’s growing death toll.
For all the eye-rolling an ASEAN summit tends to trigger, given the bloc’s reputation for glacial progress, this week’s three-day meeting has once again proved the diplomatic value of assembling disparate leaders in one room.
That Malaysia’s Anwar Ibrahim does not fall into line with our worldview on China or the Middle East, that Indonesia is on the cusp of a political experiment with its next president, Prabowo Subianto, that Southeast Asia is awash with dynastic leaders, and that the final Melbourne Declaration was another document of bland ASEAN speak – none of that diminishes the advantages of close engagement with our neighbours.
The obvious effort that went into making the event a success will not be lost on them, nor the fact Australia has backed up its commitment to deeper regional economic engagement with a plan, some funding and a basic architecture. That is always appreciated in a region where pulling people out of poverty and reaching high-income status are the two greatest priorities.
Building on existing defence, maritime security and trade ties with all our neighbours – and particularly The Philippines and Vietnam, which face direct threats from China’s expansionism – makes sense if the aim is to achieve a “strategic equilibrium” through a network of regional middle powers that need not bow to any hegemony.
Doing so should not mean papering over differences with our neighbours, or cloaking our foreign policy intent in the jejune language of an ASEAN consensus statement.
It should not require Australia to crouch behind the concept of “ASEAN centrality” in the face of regional crises such as the escalating conflict in Myanmar.
Nor should it ever lead to entertaining the prospect of ASEAN membership, a persistent question that has long outlasted its relevance given the choker chain it would place around any future federal government’s neck.
Australia became ASEAN’s first-ever dialogue partner in 1974 out of a recognition – perhaps more one-sided at the time – that our future was linked to that of our Southeast Asian neighbours, and that we had a shared interest in the region’s prosperity, even if our values did not always align. It hasn’t always been an easy or consistent pivot, but the sentiment is as true now as it was half a century ago.
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