First joint military maneuvers of the United States with Southeast Asian countries

By Bruno Philip Posted today at 10:34

Time to Reading 3 min.

It is the concern for strategic balance that has led the ten countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to organize with the United States of the first joint military maneuvers. Less than a year later, similar exercises organized between China and these same countries of Southeast Asia, some analysts indeed see these maneuvers, which started off Thailand earlier this week to end in Singapore on Saturday, September 7th, a sort of response from the "shepherd to the shepherdess". ASEAN would use the United States to send a message of independence to Beijing, a key regional player in terms of economy and trade.

The site Asia Times believes that even though the organizers of these maritime exercises between eleven nations claim that they are not directed against China, they are proof of a determination of the United States "To do their utmost to ensure the maintenance of freedom of navigation in this strategic region". Tensions remain strong in the South China Sea, where the Chinese have strengthened in recent years their presence on islands disputed with Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Taiwan and the Emirate of Brunei. 1^st August, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo denounced in Bangkok the "coercion" Chinese in the region.

Notoriously divided

In Singapore, however, it is emphasized that this "first" does not reflect the inflection of any strategic "doctrine" of an Asean anxious to counteract the growing Chinese influence. First, because such a doctrine does not exist in this notoriously divided "Association" – which includes, besides the countries mentioned above, Thailand, Singapore, Burma, Cambodia, Laos and Indonesia.

Then because, according to Manu Bhaskaran, director of Centenial, consulting firm on economic and strategic issues, "It is above all important for Asean to project the image of neutrality between Beijing and Washington. And to ensure its position of centrality in the region. It must be kept in mind that the Association can not afford to be perceived by Beijing as an institution that would take part in a strategy of containment of China … "

This analysis joins the one published by the site The diplomat by Prashanth Parameswaran, expert on strategic issues in Southeast Asia: "This commitment of the ASEAN countries alongside the Americans allows the nations of Southeast Asia to show that they are just as capable of strengthening their cooperation with the United States as maintaining (a military relationship) with China. "

A thousand soldiers, eight warships and four fighter jets participated in these maneuvers, which took them from the Gulf of Thailand before circling the tip of Ca Mau in southern Vietnam, ending in Singapore waters. "The exercise is more symbolic than anything else", despite emphasizing at the beginning of the week the English-language daily Hong Kong The South China Morning Post ; while adding that these maneuvers could still "Give a little more substance to the Indo-Pacific strategy recently unveiled by the Pentagon".

"Even if it is not for the Asean to choose between Beijing and Washington, on the other hand, is a foreign expert, the concern for neutrality displayed by Singapore which, because of its ethnic majority (Chinese han)has an ambivalent relationship with China, but Singapore is constantly reminded of the principle of the law of the sea and navigation. "

Binding Chinese requirement

If ASEAN's strategies as an institution can contradict, at the individual level, the choices of the member countries – nations like Cambodia or Laos have, for example, become very obedient customers of Beijing – the organization these joint maneuvers with the United States can still be analyzed as a way of asserting the expression of a desire for regional sovereignty.

For some Asean member countries have recently taken offense to a Chinese requirement for the least restrictive expressed during negotiations on the development of a "code of conduct" in the South China Sea: Beijing would have liked arrogating a sort of veto right calling into question the prerogative of the Asean countries to organize military maneuvers with countries outside the region.

The importance of these military exercises in the eyes of the Americans is illustrated by a detail that is perhaps not quite one: the fact that they accepted that the Burmese Navy joins the maneuvers while the hierarchy "Myanmar" military, the official name of the country, is subject to sanctions by Washington because of its role in the atrocities committed against the Muslim Rohingya minority.