ASEAN Political Security Community

ASEAN Political Security Community

by Felippe Victor Rafael Baricuatro

The ASEAN Political Security Community or the APSC is second of what comprises the ASEAN integration. It aims to inform ASEAN citizens as to what political security is, what it holds and the problems that are challenging it. While ASEAN has  been well off in the economic and socio-cultural aspects of its integration, ASEAN faces recent problems in its security, both in terms of traditional and non-traditional security.

First is its recent issue of the Rohingya crisis. The Rohingya people are a Muslim ethnic minority group residing in the Rakhine state, formerly known as Arakan. The Rohingya people are considered “stateless entities”, as the Myanmar government has been refusing to recognise them as one of the ethnic groups of the country. For this reason, the Rohingya people lack legal protection from the Government of Myanmar, are regarded as mere refugees from Bangladesh, and face strong hostility in the country—often described as one of the most persecuted people on earth. Once again ASEAN was criticized for its handling of the crisis. While other ASEAN states provided humanitarian assistance such as the Philippines offering to shelter 3,000 "boat people" from Myanmar and Bangladesh and Thailand's effort to give humanitarian assistance to the Rohingyans, it is ASEAN's failure to address it to it's core which is Myanmar's discrimination and hostility against this minority that prevents this crisis from cooling down.

Another issue it faces which is now more in the hard security side of things is China's extensive claim and occupation on the South China Sea. China has been alarmingly and aggressively occupying islands that supposedly are territories of some ASEAN states, namely the Philippines and Vietnam.  While China has been at the door step of each affected country, ASEAN has only recently taken action on this crisis. It has expressed its stance on China's aggression and has urged China to settle things diplomatically. While it has expressed its stance, a clear form of action is yet to be seen.

Since ASEAN moves by consensus decision making and values the norm of sovereignty, this only paralyzes ASEAN from making any valid action on crisis such as this. Truly, this is a challenge for ASEAN as it is steering near into becoming a regional community. It is only a challenge for ASEAN as to how it should properly address problems that stretch out to its community whose origins happen to be very domestic(originated from a member state's internal affair) in nature. As it is already in its process of integration, it is then a question. Should ASEAN continue to pursue its traditional norms and values or should it try out new norms that would probably fit more in its phase of integrity? This is a question that can only be answered once we've already reached that point. At this point, ASEAN has to prove to the world that it can take care of its security problems and that it is ready to take itself to a grander scale.