Singapore and Australia are having to deal with the same set of problems and relationships as the strategic situation in the Asia-Pacific changes. Singapore isnt a contender for an expanded Quad but, as next years Chairman of ASEAN, it will have an important role to play in one of the Turnbull Governments major foreign policy initiatives, the ASEAN-Australia Summit to be held in Sydney next March. A REPOST

A recent fortnight in Singapore made me realise how similar Australia and Singapore are in the foreign policy challenges they face. Of course there are differences too. Both have extremely important economic relationships with China, but ours is based on the supply of raw materials while Singapores is based on cooperation in high-tech areas. Singapores relationship with China is of course also conditioned by ethnic affinity, with 75% of its population of Chinese origin. (Australias Chinese population is not comparable but still considerable at about 1 million.)

Both countries hope for a sustained serious United States balancing military presence in the Pacific, although we vary in degrees of formality in regard to this. We of course have the ANZUS Treaty, but while Singapore has for years provided very important port facilities for the US Pacific Fleet it has done this essentially outside formal commitments.

Looking with alarm at both future Chinese dominance and worse, the possibility of a China-US clash, both Singapore and Australia are keen to bring India into the equation. Australia has of course returned to favouring some sort of Quad arrangement, involving Australia, India, Japan and the US. Singapore would not see its relationship with China as allowing it to join such talks, even if invited, but in a visit to India last month Singapores Defence Minister, Dr Ng Eng Hen, inspected joint Air Force exercises and foreshadowed greater naval cooperation in future. He was reported as saying that India adds a wider perspective and more robust balance beyond the US-China strategic rivalry at play.

As to the revived Quad, time will tell whether it proves useful, but its hard to be optimistic. Despite disavowals, it is certainly seen as a mechanism to contain China; and the other rationale for it, a grouping of Asia-Pacific democracies and free market economies, fails because it is so partial; if that were the rationale, surely its participants would have sought to find a place for South Korea, Indonesia, New Zealand—and Singapore.

This leaves ASEAN, to meet with Australia in Sydney next March. The fact of the meeting should meet widespread support in Australia, where many commentators have called for us to strengthen our ties with our Asian neighbours to seek to break down the overwhelming China-US emphasis in discussions of the region. ASEAN is a logical institution for us to turn to; Australia was ASEANs first dialogue partner. ASEAN countries comprise 600 million people. Looked at as a unit, ASEAN is our third largest trading partner, after China and the EU. And it is certainly relevant that ASEANs largest member, and natural leader, is Indonesia, a country of enormous importance to Australia.

But beyond generalities its not yet clear what the meeting will produce. Its most unlikely that ASEAN as an institution would adopt the rather shrill language used in recent months by both the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister in characterising Chinas actions in the South China Sea, for example. Chinas links with some ASEAN members such as Cambodia and Laos are very strong, and as recent experiences have shown are certainly strong enough to prevent ASEAN adopting positions contrary to Chinas interests. China has also recently been working actively to strengthen its links more widely within ASEAN, with Vietnam for example. And the Singapore Straits Times recently applauded Chinas high level efforts to promote a solution to the Rohingya issue between Myanmar and Bangladesh.

The Rohingya issue of course brings to the forefront a problem with ASEANs basic operating method, consensus. In a recent address on ASEAN: Next 50, Singapores Foreign Minister, Vivian Balakrishnan, said that ASEAN leaders must be made aware of the consequences of their choices and that they could be held accountable for those choices. And yet, we have to do this while respecting ASEANs design feature—we cannot do anything without consensusIt is imperative that we do notsacrifice long-term regional group interests in favour of narrower, short-term national interests.

Of course this runs the risk of inaction or impotence in the face of appalling situations such as the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, the anti-drug killings in The Philippines, and the arrest or exile of oppositionists in Cambodia, to say nothing of the military coup in Thailand and the 1MDB scandal in Malaysia. These are the sort of thing that has led many European, and Asian, commentators to be extremely critical of ASEAN, and to scoff at its claim to centrality in Asian affairs—ASEAN in the drivers seat. Another common criticism is that the citizens of the countries that make up ASEAN, as opposed to the elites, do not have a strong sense of ASEAN identity, or ownership of ASEAN.

Needless to say ASEAN countries are not the only ones that can be accused of not running their affairs in the best possible way—we ourselves come to mind—and there is certainly an alternative narrative about ASEAN. A recent book, co-authored by the leading Singapore former diplomat and academic, Kishore Mahbubani, calls ASEAN a miracle, and says that Apart from the EU, no other regional organisation comes close to matching ASEANs record in delivering five decades without any major conflicts. In many ways the ASEAN project is synonymous with peace.

Lets hope we can look forward to another five decades, and that, despite ASEANs and our imperfections, next years Summit is a step towards that.

Geoff Miller is a former Australian diplomat who served in a number of Asian countries, as Deputy Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and as Director-General, Office of National Assessments.