While Australia threw a party, China threw a punch

Australia threw a party for ASEAN this week; China threw it a punch. While Anthony Albanese was charming the region’s leaders in Melbourne, Xi Jinping was trying to grab maritime territories from the Philippines. On the same day that Australia supplied koalas for the leaders to cuddle, an aggressive panda bared its claws to block the Philippines from sailing in its own coastal waters.

So what’s the point of ASEAN? What’s the point of the whole exercise? It’s true that ASEAN is useless in a crisis. It always has been. It’s not an alliance, more a playgroup – it only comes together for good vibes and fun times. They are very keen for karaoke but not so much for crisis management.Whether it’s the Asian financial crisis, the military coup in Myanmar or the Rohingya refugee disaster, ASEAN has a firm stance of studied paralysis.

This week Manila sent two small wooden boats, escorted by two larger coast guard vessels, to resupply its troops on the Sierra Madre. Beijing sent five coast guard vessels and 18 ships from Beijing’s “maritime militia” – supposed fishing vessels that do remarkably little fishing – to surround the Filipinos. Standing a little further out to sea were two Chinese warships and a military helicopter, according to the Philippines Coast Guard spokesperson Commodore Jay Tarriela.

Beyond the obvious of its continuous campaign of conquest, Beijing stands to gain a bonus in taking the reef – the more littoral military bases it can install around the South China Sea, the better to mount any future move on Taiwan or any other target. Indonesia alone, the region’s giant, is projected to become the world’s fourth-biggest economy in the next 20 years but economic ties with Australia are woefully weak. The region’s digital economy is set to grow fivefold, says the Moore strategy.The government now has adopted 23 of the strategy’s 75 recommendations, and Moore is pretty happy: “It’s a great response, it’s very positive.

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