Flexibility and inclusivity are the AOIP’s greatest strengths, but neither make the AOIP operational. The AOIP was formulated to ‘guide cooperation’ and ‘promote an enabling environment for peace, stability, and prosperity’ while ‘upholding the rules-based regional architecture’ — but it does not specify how to achieve this.
Answering this is left to ASEAN, its member states and external partners. But coordination remains a fundamental hurdle to overcome. Without proper operationalisation, the AOIP risks becoming another redundant contribution to the trove of other fruitless ASEAN documents.
The AOIP was widely accepted by major powers, and was expected to be a bridge between Russia and other countries. But international developments have led to a lack of progress on the AOIP. The Russian invasion of Ukraine has driven a wedge between regional actors and exacerbated great power polarisation in the Indo-Pacific.
Meanwhile, the military takeover of Myanmar continues to test ASEAN and casts doubt on the potency of its conflict resolution mechanisms. The COVID-19 pandemic hampered the region’s ability to implement collective plans as member states shifted to containing the pandemic.
The AOIP aspires to enhance ASEAN-led mechanisms including forums such as the ASEAN Regional Forum and East Asia Summit. Yet the AOIP lacks a clear way to strengthen and link existing platforms, relying instead on its members to link sub-regional arrangements with ASEAN.
For example, Thailand’s chairmanship of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation — an international organisation that facilitates economic cooperation between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand — is expected to pave the way for ASEAN to pursue a deeper connectivity agenda with South Asia.
More importantly, the AOIP fails to provide ways to address the underlying problems faced by its core mechanisms, some of which have been affected by great power rivalry. The functionality of the East Asia Summit continues to diminish due to the emergence of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad) and its failure to translate words into action.
In the realm of maritime security — a key area of the AOIP — the document does little to pave the way for further maritime cooperation. Such issues are left to member states to deal with, often in collaboration with extra-regional powers. Japan, for example, continues to cooperate with ASEAN by supporting countermeasures against illegal fishing and marine plastic debris, while also providing technical and operational training.
A natural development of the perceived deficiencies of ASEAN is an increasing preference for intra- (or extra) regional security groupings and economic-related ‘minilaterals’. Although the proposed Indo-Pacific Economic Framework is still in its infancy, several ASEAN members — notably Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand — have expressed their intention to join despite the framework’s questionable benefits.
It seems the AOIP is yet to make significant progress beyond norm-setting, so further steps must be taken to make it operational. An operational document supplementing the original AOIP needs to be drafted by ASEAN members to address this issue.
This document would elaborate on the operational milestones that the AOIP seeks to achieve, akin to the ASEAN Community Blueprint. At the very least, this will provide a common picture of the objectives and processes that the AOIP intends to achieve — rather than being a collection of normative statements.
Improving organisational coordination will be necessary to achieve the goals set out in this operational document. Utilising existing leader-orientated venues, such as the ASEAN Foreign Minister Meetings, is one way to achieve this while honouring the AOIP’s intention to not create new institutions and ASEAN’s preference for informal diplomacy. These meetings could coordinate member state policies and take stock of current developments, helping to jointly map out areas where policies could be better implemented.
These steps will require a significant amount of effort from ASEAN member states and their Dialogue Partners — but are necessary to enhance the AOIP’s relevance in a region increasingly affected by great power rivalry.
Assistant Professor I Gusti Bagus Dharma Agastia is Adjunct Lecturer at the International Relations Study Program, President University, Indonesia.