ASEAN remains silent on Pyongyang summit - Editorial

The ten members of ASEAN, as well as the collective grouping, rightly refrained from reacting to the summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. While the United States and its Asian military allies Japan and South Korea strongly condemned the meeting, ASEAN avoided any unnecessary misunderstanding that could escalate tensions in the region.

The dynamics in the region are complex. East Asian countries are ASEAN’s most strategic partners in terms of economy, security and defense. The leaders of this region tend to maintain a certain level of understanding in the face of the desperate actions of Putin and Kim, who are facing isolation from the international community.

ASEAN will have the opportunity to get first-hand information from various parties on the summit when it hosts the annual ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in Vientiane on July 27. The ARF is internationally recognized as one of the most powerful forums in the world, particularly with regard to the situation in East Asia and the South China Sea.

The ARF brings together the 10 ASEAN member states and their 10 dialogue partners: the United States, China, Japan, Canada, India, South Korea, Russia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the European Union, as well as other regional countries such as Papua New Guinea, Mongolia, North Korea, Pakistan, Timor-Leste, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as observers.

The upcoming forum will give outgoing Foreign Minister Retno L.P. Marsudi the opportunity to talk with her Russian and North Korean counterparts, although North Korea has rarely participated in previous forums. Nevertheless, the forum is an excellent place to discuss the current situation in East Asia, including conflicts and tensions between the parties.

In their joint statement, Putin and Kim acknowledged that each country would provide “all available military and other assistance if the other were faced with armed aggression,” reviving the automatic military engagement clause of the 1961 treaty between North Korea and the Soviet Union. It expired in 1996, but it is just a document.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has good personal relations with Putin, but has never met Kim in person. Ties between Jakarta and Pyongyang are well maintained, though more on the political than the economic level.

Southeast Asian countries have deliberately distanced themselves from sensitive issues like the Putin-Kim summit because the regional group has established good relations with Moscow and Pyongyang. ASEAN leaders are also aware that the latest Russia-North Korea deal was driven by short-term interests, namely Putin’s desperate need for weapons to continue his war in Ukraine and Kim’s assurances of Russian oil reserves and high technology to develop his nuclear weapons.

The summit brought a resemblance of the Cold War atmosphere to the Korean Peninsula in the 1950s, with the United States and its allies condemning the meeting.

China has remained officially silent on the meeting between two of its closest allies, although a government-controlled newspaper described the summit and its decision as a “rational choice” compared to the trilateral military pact between Washington, Tokyo and Seoul. In May, South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol hosted a trilateral summit with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida.

As expected, Western media derided the Putin-Kim summit as a meeting between two leaders of pariah states, but also described it as a very dangerous event, especially for stability in East Asia.

ASEAN has rightly chosen to remain silent, even though the fallout from the summit could potentially endanger some of its dialogue partners in East Asia. The Biden administration has reportedly tried to push ASEAN to respond to the Pyongyang meeting, but to no avail, as Southeast Asian countries do not want to get involved in major-power tensions.

Defining a clear line on this issue would only complicate the conflict, while only de-escalation matters. The ASEAN method is so far the best policy to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings. In a period of crisis like the one we are going through, the ARF is an event that we cannot wait for.

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