industrial sector will be naturally slipping into China’s rules of digital game.
The security implications of the Digital Silk Road for ASEAN are also likely to be far-reaching. As Southeast Asia integrates in China’s digital space, the aftereffects will range from the PRC’s possibilities to manipulate information during the elections (for instance, at the electronic voting and the vote-count procedures) to gathering security-related information. If this scenario even partially materializes, the degree of ASEAN’s vulnerability vis-à-vis China may well increase exponentially.
The US-ASEAN cooperation also includes the digital component. Of note is the US-ASEAN Cyber Dialogue. In the view of the US, ASEAN is a fast-growing market for digital services. The US-ASEAN Business Council estimates that there are 914 million active mobile connections in ASEAN, almost 1.5 times its population44. But the cyber-security remains underdeveloped, because of which in November 2019 the first session of the US-ASEAN cyber dialogue was convened45. The Indo-Pacific Region as the response to the BRI also has the digital narrative. Of note is the US’ Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy is supplemented by the Digital Connectivity and Cyber-Security Partnership, launched in July 2018. Specifically, the initiative advocates the improvement of cybersecurity systems, since now the losses from their shortcomings cost the region $ 300 billion annually. Another problem is the weak development of cyber competencies. DCCP pledges to solve this problem but recognizes that in order to maintain the current growth rates, the region will have to invest $ 2.3 trillion by 2030 only in telecommunications46. Taking into account the politicization of the Indo-Pacific narrative, this means that the Sino-US contradictions are embracing the digital space.
Asean’s Pains and Remedies
Considering all the developments outlined above, a timely question is what specific dangers ASEAN is exposed to, as well as what countermeasures it can adopt. Some observations are worthy of note.
Arguably, the association faces real prospects for losing its digital sovereignty (understood as ASEAN’s own digital infrastructure and strong digital competences, as well as the ASEAN member states’ ability to implement an independent policy in the internet in accordance with the international law), mostly as an aftereffect of the emerging Sino-US contradictions. In fact, the association is again being torn apart by China and the United States, this time along the digital lines, with prospects for digital bipolarity. While China and the US have repeatedly declared their intention to draw a line between their political contradictions and strengthen economic interdependence, including in Southeast Asia, does this priority extend to the digital sphere, and is the Sino-US technological interdependence possible? Or can it – by its definition – be nothing a “weaponized interdependence” at best?
Another potential threat for the association stems from prospects for new imbalances, both between and within (emphasis added – the authors) the Southeast Asian states. The Fourth Industrial Revolution entails large-scale social aftereffects, mainly a widening income gap, which will overlap with the deep-rooted social, ethnic and religious problems prevalent in Southeast Asia. If so, ASEAN will be unable to successfully develop regional integration as long as the processes of national integration are unfinished.
ASEAN’s vulnerability is reinforced by potentially negative implications for ASEAN-led multilateral dialogue platforms on political-security issues. As China continues to build its own security system in Eurasia portraying itself as the exclusive provider of economic benefits, the ASEAN-driven multilateral venues are likely to slip into irrelevance.
For ASEAN, a core premise in tackling these problems comes from its readiness to perform a double-edged task. The association should increase the manageability of challenges it encountered before the present digital problems appeared and at the same time strengthen its digital capacity-building. Both tasks make ASEAN upgrade its relations with extra-regional partners.
But these partners should simultaneously (emphasis added – the authors) meet multiple criteria. As the confrontation between the Asia-Pacific big powers is rising, this partner should be willing to preserve the ASEAN-favored neutrality and inclusivity in “driving” the regional multilateral dialogue. As digitalization is a global phenomenon, this partner should be an established global power capable of shaping the global digital agenda. As ASEAN needs digital competences, this partner should respond to these expectations. As the association is scared by the intentions of China and the US to obtain unilateral benefits at the expense of ASEAN, this partner should be free from such intentions.
Reiterating that these criteria should be met fully rather than partially, among ASEAN’s array of external partners there is only one appropriate. This is the Russian Federation, which recently enhanced its relations with ASEAN to the level of Strategic Partnership. To make this relationship really strategic, as its name suggests, ASEAN and Russia should develop future-oriented, long-term and resourceful directions of cooperation. Arguably, the digital sphere offers the parties the best presently available option.
Conclusion
The digital stage of globalization with its political, economic and informational aftereffects is the “new normal” of international affairs while digital infrastructure and competences are the “new must-have” for international actors. For ASEAN striving to increase its global influence, this is especially relevant as it will specify on what terms the association will integrate in the global economy, politics and security.
ASEAN’s response is complicated by numerous factors, as the association has only partially succeeded in making Southeast Asia an investor-attractive economic area. As the international milieu in which the association has to implement its policy becomes increasingly competitive, ASEAN has to act without the previously prepared assets. Actually, the ASEAN-led multilateral formats and initiatives, unable to digitally support ASEAN’s prospective plans, as well as to ensure ASEAN’s extra-regional partners in ASEAN’s indispensability, are likely to present the association with new challenges.
To effectively cope with them, the association will have to revise its present mode of relations with dialogue partners. Among them, the Russian Federation, an established global power with unique digital competences and a long-standing trusted friend of the association, has ample changes to loom all the larger in ASEAN’s present and future order of international priority.
Асеан в политике Вьетнама: между двумя председательствами
В главе рассматривается АСЕАН как направление внешней политики Вьетнама в период между председательствами Ханоя в этой организации в 2010 и 2020 годах. Выявлены произошедшие за этот период во внешней среде изменения, повлиявшие на политику Ассоциации (рост соперничества между великими державами, обострение споров в Южно-Китайском море, рост протекционизма, рестрикционизма