Abstract
In light of the growing strategic significance of the Indo-Pacific, Bhubhindar Singh and Sarah Teo’s co-edited book provides a fresh insight into a relatively less-discussed phenomenon—minilateralism, in the emerging security architecture in the region. Singh and Teo situate the context of their book in the increasingly proliferating minilateral arrangements of security emerging in the Indo-Pacific, which the authors argue is a result of the ‘rising doubts over the sustainability of the US leadership and its alliance network’ and ‘the inadequacies of the extant multilateral arrangements in resolving strategic regional challenges’ (p. 2).
It helps that the authors define minilateralism, especially in the Indo-Pacific, in the introductory chapter, which serves as the conceptual framework for the volume. Singh and Teo argue that even though minilateralism has been largely concept- ualised as a sub-set of multilateralism, fundamentally they differ in both quantitative and qualitative aspects (p. 4). Although numerically minilateralism involves a smaller group of participants, in relation to multilateralism, qualitatively minilateralism aims to bring together the smallest number of players on board towards solving a particular problem, also defined as relatively exclusive, whereas multilateralism is based on more indivisibility and generalised, organised principles (p. 4). One of the key contributions of this section is made through efforts to establish how minilateralism and multilateralism are distinct (see pp. 4–6).
The chapters are divided into three thematic parts. The first three chapters look at US-centric minilateral arrangements in the Indo-Pacific, including the Quadrilateral Security Dialogues (QUAD). The fourth and fifth chapters focus on the Mekong sub-region, especially the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation (LMC), and the final three chapters focus on the impact of the emerging minilateral arrangements on existing multilateral platforms, namely the ASEAN.
William T. Tow begins his chapter with the assertion that even though the Trump administration has prompted an impression of unreliability in the way the United States’ traditional security partners look at Washington, minilateralism has emerged as a means by which the United States and its like-minded partners have continued to address common security concerns in the Indo-Pacific (p. 14). Tow argues that the rise of minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific has enabled the United States to substitute its sustained ‘hub-and-spokes’ network in the region, along with allowing its partner countries in the region to have more flexibility in retaining their partnerships with the United States on issues which are a strategic priority to them (p. 21). However, it remains to be seen how, if at all, minilateralism can substitute bilateral or multilateral networks. In the following chapter, Andrew O’Neil and Lucy West take a critical note of the ‘resurgence’ of the QUAD. The authors argue that despite the QUAD gaining strategic currency after its hiatus, especially since 2017, there is ‘little evidence of coherent strategic intent among them’ (p. 27). O’Neil and West posit that even though the widespread optimism accorded to the resurgence of the QUAD, there still remains a lack of a coherent purpose for the grouping, and it is likely to be overshadowed by the United States’ bilateral and other minilateral initiatives in the region. The authors demonstrate in the chapter, how the four actors in the QUAD have divergent commitments and perceptions of the challenges they are faced with in the Indo-Pacific. Even in the case of a rising China, which is understood as a common challenge to all, the four QUAD countries have different certainties of commitment. In such a scenario, O’Neil and West argue that only formal security alliances are well placed to mitigate the challenges (p. 38). Tomohiko Satake, in his chapter, posits that China’s growing power and influence in the region has facilitated the revival of the QUAD (p. 44). Unlike O’Neil and West, Satake has a more optimistic take on whether the QUAD can mitigate the structural challenges emerging in the Indo-Pacific, mostly due to the rise of China. According to Satake, if the four QUAD countries can ‘effectively coordinate their military and economic policies’, it can deter the China challenge (p. 47). Satake concludes that for the QUAD to prosper, it must bring into fold other relevant actors from the region, within a cooperative, yet competitive framework that moves beyond the Sino-US competition in the Indo-Pacific (p. 53).
In the fourth chapter, Xue Gong takes stock of the growing Chinese engagement in Southeast Asia, by way of initiating the LMC. According to Gong, the Chinese have expanded the modes of their engagement in the region, moving from previously preferred multilateralism and bilateralism to a more regionally sensitive minilateral approach to ‘promote [their] interests in Southeast Asia’ (p. 57). Gong demonstrates that even though China has been mindful in articulating its outlook towards the Mekong countries by selectively defining the agenda of its cooperation in the region, changing ‘the course of regional governance’ (p. 66), it has used minilateralism as a ‘cover to exclude other external players’ (p. 69). In the following chapter, Shang-su Wu argues that through the LMC, and its exclusive riparian agenda, China has managed to overshadow other external players and to a considerable extent, cement its influence of mainland Southeast Asia. According to Wu, China’s engagement in the LMC is a marked departure from its stance of water as a sovereign issue (p. 75). In view of China’s ambitions of expanding its influence in its neighbourhood, including Southeast Asia, the LMC has enabled China to gain an upper hand as the dams on the Lancang River, maintained under the aegis of the LMC, are likely to be essential to the five riparian countries. In this way, China has managed to keep other external players out of the strategic landscape in the Mekong region.
In the sixth chapter, Huong Le Thu examines ASEAN’s perceptions of the rise of the QUAD. Thu further critically analyses whether ASEAN has been historically averse to the idea of any minilateral cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, which could jeopardise its centrality. Towards this end, Thu argues that there is ample evidence to show that ASEAN has responded favourably to the emergence of any minilateral initiative and has not seen it as competition (p. 90). On the basis of expert opinion surveys, Thu’s findings indicate that majority of the respondents believe that QUAD would in fact complement ASEAN, and not side-line the discourse of ASEAN centrality in the region (pp. 93-94). Contrary to Thu’s analysis, Vannarith Chheang, in the following chapter, posits that the emergence of minilateralism, as a response to the growing challenges of multilateralism runs the risk of adversely affecting the centrality and unity of ASEAN (p. 103). Chheang, in this chapter, looks at two ensuing dimensions of minilateral practices in the region. One is the economic dimension of minilateralism, and the second being political security minilateralism. According to Chheang, economic minilateralism complements ASEAN multilateralism by way of narrowing development gap between the states, facilitating sector-driven cooperation and upholding political will and norms of economic integration (p. 106). On the political security minilateralism front, efforts to mitigate non-traditional security challenges tend to reiterate ASEAN centrality, while geopolitically embedded arrangement challenges the same (p. 108). In the final chapter, See Seng Tan provides a unique insight into the evolving debate on minilateralism by making a case study of the ASEAN’s Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus). According to Tan, despite the ADMM-Plus being a large grouping with membership strength of 18 states, it has so far stayed afloat in the broader context of failing multilateralism. Tan posits that this is because, by and large, the ADMM-Plus grouping has so far behaved like a ‘minilateral club’, without falling for trappings which have plagued similar groupings like the ASEAN Regional Forum (p. 120). Tan notes that despite not fitting the conditions of being seen as a minilateral grouping, the pragmatically oriented conduct has enabled them to achieve more than its multilateral counterparts in the region (p. 129).
Overall, this volume makes an important contribution to the increasingly critical aspect of minilateralism that is emerging in the Indo-Pacific context. In terms of the merits of the book, Singh and Teo manage to put together a collection of chapters that provide a holistic perspective on the issues they intend to address. Given that the editors locate the emergence of minilateralism as a consequence of the growing Sino-US rivalry in the region, the varied perspectives of US-led and China-led minilateral arrangements help in a comprehensive analysis of how the strategic landscape is shaping in the region. The inclusion of ASEAN as an important player in the region is also critical. However, the book could have benefitted from inclusion of views on minilateralism in the Indian Ocean, given the emerging strategic dynamics in the region, in the wider Indo-Pacific context, as the Paris–Delhi–Canberra axis and the Colombo Security Conclave gain currency. Nonetheless, this volume provides much food for thought on the emergence of minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific, as the multilateral approach of cooperation increasingly faces critical challenges.