Rebalancing

There’s a lot of talk these days about “rebalancing” of US interests from conflict areas around the world toward Asia.

It’s easier to explain what rebalancing is not: “The notion that this is somehow a containment strategy for China.”

“It’s not a containment strategy and never has been,” Ambassador David Carden told me yesterday. “China is an enormously important economic partner for the United States.”

Carden is America’s first permanent representative to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, with his office based in Jakarta, Indonesia, seat of the ASEAN Secretariat. He’s in Manila for today’s First Expanded ASEAN Maritime Forum.

During our hour-long talk at the US embassy yesterday, there was no discussion on any redeployment of US troops as part of America’s pivot to Asia.

Carden instead dwelled on other challenges facing the region. The biggest risk, he believes, is water security, which impacts on food security, which in turn could impact on national policies that could cause regional and even global instability.

He emphasized that the proposal to create his office was made way back in May 2006 by four lawmakers including then senator Barack Obama.

The rationale was to assist Southeast Asia in addressing issues including climate change, flu pandemics and economic matters.

A lawyer who specialized in securities fraud litigation prior to his appointment, Carden is currently working to develop a “common legal regime” within ASEAN that will give “some kind of predictability” in addressing “inefficiencies” in the way the region confronts problems such as human trafficking, environmental degradation, lack of education, and even corruption.

Carden describes corruption as “an inefficient allocation of capital.” He said President Aquino is “doing an admirable job” in focusing on the problem.

Economic integration is hard enough. Will ASEAN go along with a common legal framework? Carden is an optimistic person; he thinks if nearly 50 American states could agree on common business legislation, consensus is possible among 10 Southeast Asian nations.

Carden showed optimism even after ASEAN failed to come up with a joint communiqué for the first time in 45 years at the end of its latest ministerial meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, mainly because of disagreements in dealing with territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

In an opinion piece that appeared in the Aug. 2 issue of Today newspaper in Singapore, Carden wrote: What is notable is that for the first time in 45 years, whether ASEAN issued a Joint Communiqué or not is a topic of more than minor consequence beyond the halls of the region’s chancelleries, classrooms, and news bureaus. ASEAN has been issuing declarations and signing agreements for over four decades, and yet no more than a handful of people remember what was discussed at prior Ministerials. By contrast, now it is broadly accepted that the series of circumstances behind this latest intramural ASEAN debate merits the world’s scrutiny, and may hold important messages that will shape the network of interactions in the region.  

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Many problems now faced by ASEAN were experienced by the United States back in the 1800s, Carden pointed out.

“We cut down all our trees. We dammed up our rivers. We spoiled our air and water,” he said. “We reinvented ourselves with rules and with laws.”

Stronger engagement with ASEAN is in line with a new thrust that the US is promoting even in other parts of the world.

“The US understands the need for a sustainable, rules-based system that is going to put this region and, for that matter, other parts of the world in a position where it is beneficial to the United States, from a trade and other standpoint,” he said.

Haven’t the other “bilateral” US ambassadors been pursuing this goal all along? Carden explained that his office works closely with the bilateral diplomats. What he handles are issues at the multilateral level.

US Ambassador Harry Thomas Jr., for example, may be concerned with a US carrier trying to do business in the Philippines. Carden handles regional open skies policy.

“How do we create a world that is prosperous, safe, and a healthy environment for the people of Southeast Asia?” That, Carden said, is the task of his office.

Carden sees ASEAN as a region with a series of interrelated natural and man-made systems, with the US assisting in their management based on its own experience.

The initiatives include increasing awareness about human trafficking, teaching English because proficiency in the language is a useful skill in the global economy, increasing agricultural productivity and managing saltwater intrusion.

Carden even speaks of the consequences of failure to control the prevalence of diabetes, for example. An estimated 50 percent of Singaporeans are expected to be diabetic by 2040, he said. There are “deferred costs” in failing to understand the consequences of choices people make.

“If we fail at that, then ultimately we fail our children and their future,” Carden said.

He describes as “a very false and unfortunate narrative” the notion that America’s comprehensive engagement with ASEAN, as symbolized by the creation of his office, is all about US-China rivalry.

Carden uses a sports analogy: “They want to think, who’s up, who’s down, who’s winning, who’s losing?”

US economic competition with China is real, Carden admits, “but the idea that somehow we don’t share this world together is one that is a false narrative.”

He also reiterated Washington’s position that it is not taking sides in overlapping territorial claims in the West Philippine Sea.

Washington has maintained that the territorial disputes should be settled peacefully, based on international law, and multilaterally. Beijing, however, frowns on a multilateral approach, and the US position on this aspect has been seen as support for its traditional ally the Philippines.

Carden insists that US engagement in the region is more complex, with “problems and opportunities” interrelated and calling for a common approach.

“Everything is connected to everything else,” he said.

That goes as well for nations.