ASEAN Summit Highlights

Why in news?

The 34th ASEAN Summit was recently held in Thailand’s capital Bangkok.

Click here to read on ASEAN's RCEP decision

What is ASEAN?

• The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is a regional intergovernmental organization of countries in Southeast Asia.
• Its objective is to promote intergovernmental cooperation and facilitate economic, political, security, military, educational, and socio-cultural integration.
• ASEAN was established in 1967 in Bangkok, Thailand.
• It came consequent to the signing of the ASEAN Declaration (Bangkok Declaration) by the founding members of ASEAN.
• [These are Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.]

• It, now, also includes Vietnam, Brunei, Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, and Laos, totalling to 10 members.
• ASEAN’s six FTA partners are India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

What are the key outcomes of the summit?

• Indo-Pacific Outlook - Ten leaders of the ASEAN member states have agreed to adopt the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific concept which was led by Indonesia.
• There are 5 main points related to the Outlook - the background and reason behind, the key elements, objectives, principles, and areas of cooperation.

• The outlook reflects the centrality and strength of ASEAN in respecting peace and dialogue culture and strengthening cooperation.

• The outlook on the Indo-Pacific issue has come amidst the current global developments in the region. Click here to know more.
• BIMSTEC - With the Indo-Pacific strategy, ASEAN has reserved a special place for India's BIMSTEC grouping as one to connect with.
• This will be the first sign of acceptance in the region of India's renewed interest in BIMSTEC.
• Notably, India has put in more diplomatic energy into BIMSTEC in recent years.
• This comes as an effort to redefine India’s neighbourhood eastwards, for better connectivity and economic and strategic engagement.
• Marine debris - The Bangkok Declaration on Combating Marine Debris in the region was endorsed at the summit.
• Efforts will be taken to significantly reduce and prevent the amount of marine debris, particularly from land-based activities.
• Leaders also agreed to –
  1. encourage integrated land-to-sea approaches to prevent and reduce marine debris
  2. strengthen their respective legislation
  3. intensify regional and international cooperation, including dialogs on policies and exchanges of information

• In this regard, ASEAN will promote inter-sectoral coordination among ASEAN sectoral bodies.
• This is to address the multidimensional negative and far-reaching impact of marine debris.
• Leaders also agreed to promote an innovative solution to raise plastic costs.
• Strengthening research capacities and applications of scientific knowledge to combat marine debris were also discussed.

What is China’s stake in the region?

• China does not like the notion of Indo-Pacific, and prefer calling it Asia-Pacific.

• ASEAN also gave a prominent space to the UN Law of the Sea and freedom of navigation.
• Despite being a signatory to UNCLOS (United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea), China has built artificial islands in the Spratly Islands.
• It is also on the way to militarising them.
• These seas and islands are heavily contested between China, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, etc.
• The US and its allies have been running freedom of navigation operations (FONOPs) in these seas for some time now, as a show of resistance to China’s domination.

Source: Times of India

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