International think tanks warned of economic impact on the region if the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will not unite to stop escalation of disputes in the South China Sea.
“Each year, $5.3 trillion of trade passes through the South China Sea; U.S. trade accounts for $1.2 trillion of this total. Should a crisis occur, the diversion of cargo ships to other routes would harm regional economies as a result of an increase in insurance rates and longer transits. Conflict of any scale in the South China Sea would hamper the claimants from benefiting from the South China’s Sea’s proven and potential riches,” Bonnie Glaser, senior advisor for Asia at Center for Strategic and International Studies said in a published note.
A. Ibrahim Almuttaqi of Jakarta-based Habibie Center said Asean should go beyond simple rhetoric and towards actions following the favorable ruling for the Philippines by the Permanent Court of Arbitration on the West Philippine Sea dispute.
“Even agreeing on simple rhetoric has proved to be difficult for Asean,” Almuttaqi said at the forum ‘Renewing the Multilateral Response: Building an Asean Coalition’ organized by the think tank Stratbase Albert del Rosario Institute in partnership with Asia Society Philippines and Asian Institute of Management in Makati City.
“It is clear that there is much homework for Asean to do to raise its relevance in the South China Sea issue, and only when it fixes its problems can it seek to comprehensively and inclusively help resolve the territorial row,” he said.
ADRi president Dindo Manhi said the 28th ASEAN Summit in Vientiane, Laos was a good venue to send a strong message to call on China to play a constructive, rather than destabilizing, role in the region.
“The Philippines and its Asean partners have an opportunity to leverage on the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s decision to uphold the UNCLOS and effectively extinguishing China’s ‘Nine-Dash Line’claim,” he said.
Almuttaqi is against isolating Beijing, which he said would only serve to provoke the rising power into taking a more assertive stance.
“Remember, the ruling cannot be implemented without the cooperation of all parties, including China,” he said.