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Former Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa is beginning to speak now at @CSISIndonesia on "Post-Pandemic Indo-Pacific." Livestream here: .
Pak Marty is always creative in thinking about solutions to regional challenges, should be interesting.
Pak Marty is always creative in thinking about solutions to regional challenges, should be interesting.
Natalegawa: "In the absence of a more thoughtful consideration, what we are seeing is our region being dissected along more traditional 20th century alignment... I am troubled by this kind of alignment against a common enemy."
Natalegawa says he was speaking specifically about the Quad and 'Quad-Plus" there, as well as 'other permutations."
Pak Marty says he is also concerned about deliberate unpredictability of great powers, which heightens the risk of conflict, and about U.S. rhetoric that goes beyond criticizing "China" to criticizing "the CCP."
Marty implicitly criticizes "business as usual" attitude of ASEAN. Asks if the ASEAN Regional Forum will even meet this year, says second reading of Code of Conduct has been delayed. Asks whether the bloc's statements have become meaningless as facts on the ground change.
Natalegawa: "Even in the Cold War, there was an alternative voice, non-alignment, a third way. But on U.S.-China, I'm afraid silence seems to be the normâas if it's too complicated, too divisive... (1/2)
"But if we delay making greater efforts to manage strategic competition, then it will be to the disadvantage of us all." (2/2)
Natalegawa asks whether we would be in a better place, if competition would have been better managed, whether the East Asia Summit had been convened earlier, as opposed to ASEAN+3 and ASEAN+1 summits.
Former ASEAN Secretary General Ong Keng Yong asks whether subregional arrangements are more promising than broader multilateral arrangements. (He doesn't use the controversial 'ASEAN-Minus-X' language, but he seems to come close).
Ambassador Ong runs through a number of subregional groupings. Refers to the Beijing-led Lancang Mekong Initiative, "which is now renamed something in Chinese, and not recognizable to many of us in ASEAN."
Marty: "You can't have a la carte regionalism, where you are in it when it benefits you, and you are out of it when it doesn't concern you." Says problems spread, and "we need to nurture and develop a sense of shared threat and shared problem." Says this is a role for leaders.
Natalegawa: "U.S.-China competition is a fact of life, it is going to be with us for the foreseeable future. So it's well worth investing in our capacity to manage this reality. And I must say, with the greatest respect, I am not seeing that at the moment."
Natalegawa: A Biden Administration would be more reliable than the current administration, and that Chinese behavior in the region might become more "normal" as a result. But "ASEAN has to know what it wants, it cannot simply be reactive to changes of administration."
ASEAN engagement on the South China Sea in the 1990s was 'anticipatory and transformative'. But now it has become reactive. Says ASEAN has all the infrastructure to manage these problems, "but we have to make use of them, or they will become unimportant."
On the South China Sea Code of Conduct, says "that the onus is on China, I have to be frank, to really demonstrate that there is no discrepancy between publicly declared policies and reality," alluding to the gap between Beijing's rhetoric and its unilateral actions.