Southeast Asia In A Multipolar World

ASEAN’s Response to Ukraine Invasion is Telling of the Region’s Geopolitical Priorities

Ethan Paczkowski

Published in

Political Economy

6 min readMar 7, 2022

Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash

Note: This is a rapidly developing situation and official statements quoted may change in the coming weeks.

The world’s eyes lay on a newborn political crisis in Ukraine: an invasion only days old but years in the making. Not since fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, or even détente in the late 1970s, have nations had to so scrupulously consider what “side” they may be on in the international order. As a new axis emerges around the illiberal regimes of Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea, a historically ideologically divided Southeast Asia must now reconsider its place in this new multipolar world.

Southeast Asia has long been caught in the crossfire of East-West conflict. Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos were the battlegrounds of years of proxy war between the former USSR and the United States. Indonesia engaged in pitched ideological war in the 1960s, resulting in the deaths of thousands of civilians. Malaysia and Singapore firmly sided with the West to ensure their economic development.

History included, these states are now faced with an important decision of who to align with, how strongly to condemn this invasion, and how to go about aiding a free country fighting for its existence. This is an analysis of how we have seen a few major Southeast Asian players react to the Ukraine crisis so far.

ASEAN As a Whole

The political and economic organization ASEAN — consisting of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand — issued a toothless statement on the situation in Ukraine, calling “on all relevant parties to exercise maximum restraint and make utmost efforts to pursue dialogues through all channels”¹. ASEAN stopped short of declaring the war an invasion, preferring the label “armed hostilities”. They also failed to implicate Russia as the clear responsible party in these actions. What we take from this is that ASEAN simply doesn’t have the same foreign policy unity as a bloc like the EU does. Some countries are a bit closer to Russia than others, and there is clearly some disagreement over what terminology to use. They may have opted to issue a weaker blanket statement condemning violence — an extraordinarily easy thing to do — so that their individual member states could issue their own opinions.

Regardless of how this decision was made, it is obvious that ASEAN will not play a large role in determining a united response to Russian operations in Ukraine.

Indonesia

On February 24th, just hours after Russian forces rolled into Ukraine on all fronts, Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo condemned Russian aggression, stating “Stop the war. War brings misery to mankind and puts the whole world at risk”². Indonesia’s foreign ministry went on to say “the escalation of the armed conflict in Ukraine…endangers the people and peace in the Asian region”.

Already much stronger than the ASEAN statement it signed its name to, Indonesia seems to be firmly allying with the Western position on Ukraine, that one invasion constitutes a threat to all democracies around the world. Indonesia historically has reason for concern. Japanese invasion during World War II followed by Dutch re-occupation led to atrocities for the Indonesian people. The ensuing dictatorial rule of Suharto also showed Indonesians what hard work it is building a democracy, something most would want to hang onto despite some electoral flaws in recent years.

On a foreign policy angle, Indonesia has played an important role for the West since Suharto took power in the 1960s. The unfortunate massacre of Indonesian communists during that period signaled to the United States that the archipelago would not fall into the Eastern orbit. Despite being the first non-aligned state, Indonesia performed well as a quickly developing, more democratically inclined country in a divided Southeast Asia.

It is safe to assume, due to their present statements and history, that Indonesia will continue to rhetorically, though probably not materially, support a pro-West resolution to this conflict. After all, Russia is a negligible trade partner³ to the archipelago and there is little reason to kowtow to an authoritarian like Putin.

Burma

Burma, in the midst of its own political chaos and under a despotic military government, has broke rank with its neighbors and directly endorsed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Burmese military spokesman Zaw Min Tun proclaimed that “Russia was acting to maintain its sovereignty” and “balance global power”⁴.

The story of Burma in recent decades makes this statement almost an inevitable conclusion. The Burmese have found themselves similarly castigated by the West over their suppression of democracy and their repeated human rights violations against the Rohingya Muslim minority. Like Russia, Burma has been subject to punitive sanctions and they have been widely condemned by democracies the world over.

During this time of isolation, Burma’s military regime has found a welcoming ally in Vladimir Putin. Explicitly, Russia sold $2.3 billion worth of weaponry to the Burmese military as recently as last year. Implicitly, there have been reports that the conspirators of Burma’s 2021 coup met with Kremlin officials weeks before they overthrew the government.

Russian economic ties with Burma are limited, so their alliance seems to be one of political convenience for the Burmese military government. If democracy were to be restored by a popular movement, we could see a reversal of stance on the Ukraine crisis. But by that time, the world could be a radically different place.

Vietnam

Vietnam has not released a strong statement of recognition about the happenings in Ukraine, besides acknowledgment that they were “surprised” to see Russia invading so swiftly⁵. Vietnam occupies a unique position given its history with the USSR and its present relations with Russia. The USSR was a major benefactor of North Vietnam in the 1960s and remains a destination for Russian arms sales and military assistance like Burma. However, Vietnam is a growing (mostly capitalist) economy which benefits greatly from trade with the West. Their young population is also freely connected to the internet — reason to believe support for the war would be scant.

Another layer of consideration is increasing Vietnamese concern over the emergence of a Sino-Russian axis. Russia’s moves could embolden an aggressive China which seeks to expand into Vietnam’s territorial waters. Many Vietnamese leaders see the Ukraine crisis as an unfortunate distraction that might draw away US military presence in the Pacific, leaving the Chinese free to capitalize on the chaos. Public officials in Vietnam are largely split on allying with China or the US⁶, but China definitely would like to deepen its relations with Indochina, and this might be their opportunity to make inroads.

Overall Takeaways

It appears that par for the course, some compelling determinants for where Southeast Asian countries lay on the invasion of Ukraine are: 1) Historical relations with Russia/lack thereof; 2) Present arms deals with Russia; 3) Present trade volume with Russia.

These material factors are currently the most relevant, but philosophy also plays into the geopolitical landscape. More authoritarian governments such as Burma align with an authoritarian Russia that legitimizes their rule (see also: Syria, Iran). The strongest democracies will continue to support the West and denounce this invasion, but I would not be surprised to see more authoritarian leaders within democracies tilt to Russia’s favor. The Philippines’ Duterte has denounced the invasion lightly, but given his track record of state sanctioned violence and anti-democratic policies, perhaps this may change.

Another takeaway is that this crisis likely will embolden Chinese aggression in the Asia Pacific, and few Southeast Asian countries stand to gain from that. It could be a call to action for the region to embrace Washington and beef up their own militaries. Outside of Southeast Asia, Japan and Taiwan look poised to increase defense spending, so these may be tracks to follow for ASEAN.

It is only days into the unprecedented invasion of Ukraine — certainly not enough time for predictions to be taken with anything more than a grain of salt. We will see how Southeast Asia responds, especially as Russia and its associates ramp up a propaganda campaign that calls to memory historic Western aggression. Winning the information war is almost as important as winning materially, leaving the fate of this region up in the air depending on which superpower they believe.