"Last April, a government spokesman in Cambodia, current holder of the revolving chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said Phnom Penh wanted ASEAN to have “one voice, one destiny, one community.”
Last Friday, that one voice was nowhere to be heard at the conclusion of the ASEAN foreign ministers’ meeting in the Cambodian capital. Philippine officials noted that it was the first time in the grouping’s 45 years of existence that ASEAN failed to issue a joint communiqué at the end of its meeting.
Cambodia had been one of two reported holdouts in ASEAN efforts to issue a joint statement calling for a Code of Conduct in the South China Sea, with dispute settlement to be based on international agreements. China, which needed to come on board, made it clear it had no intention to do so. Beijing stood firm on its position of resolving territorial disputes in its surrounding waters bilaterally. Its ally Cambodia agreed, insisting that bilateral issues should not be included in an ASEAN communiqué. Not surprisingly, Beijing hailed the ASEAN meeting as “productive.”
Where the vision of “one voice, one destiny, one community” is now headed is uncertain. The dispute over the South China Sea, which the Chinese claim nearly in its entirety, involves six capitals including Manila. The sea encompasses busy shipping lanes where freedom of navigation should be unimpeded. That is not a bilateral issue but a multilateral one with international ramifications.
Yet ASEAN shied away from taking a common stand on the issue, with some news reports saying Beijing leaned heavily on Phnom Penh to block the joint communiqué. It may bode well for the two countries’ relations, but the impact on ASEAN unity and cooperation can only be negative. When a group whose members are smaller in size faces off with a giant, unity is the only hope for negotiating from a position of relative strength. There is a popular saying about what happens when a group becomes divided instead."
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