Despite the fact that the European Union (EU) is currently going through hard times, it is unlikely that anyone will dare to dispute the fact that integration processes have made a significant contribution to solving at least one existential problem-they helped to eliminate the conflicts that have torn Europe apart for centuries. Moreover, even in the context of the global economic crisis, which would seem to call into question the very foundations of the EU, public opinion still tends to believe that the benefits of the functioning of the integration association outweigh the existing costs. The European Union itself is seen as the most effective institution in dealing with the crisis compared to national governments and other international organizations1.

1

Classical approaches to the analysis of integration problems postulate that states, being included in an integration-type association, inevitably find themselves forced to limit their aspirations to resort unilaterally to violent forms of resolving contradictions. At the same time, with the development of integration processes, the population of such countries increasingly feels the benefits of interstate cooperation at different levels.² Together, these aspects reduce the risk of inter-State conflicts to a minimum.

As practice shows, this principle does not work quite like this in Southeast Asia. At a certain stage, the founders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) really needed to rise above conflicts in order to solve the more pressing international political problems facing the region during the Cold War. From this point of view, the most serious stage for Southeast Asia was the 1970s. The institutionalization of the regional bloc dictated the need to overcome confrontational relations between Indonesia and Malaysia, Malaysia and the Philippines. ³ The next milestone in the development of the Association was the accession to ASEAN in the 1990s of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, which were part of the socialist bloc during the Cold War and ideologically and practically opposed the countries that created the Association.

At first glance, the unification of all the states of Southeast Asia within one integration grouping symbolized overcoming the dividing lines in the region. Since the establishment of ASEAN, the region has indeed made progress in political and economic modernization and peaceful development. Clear achievements would include the formation of a special culture of international communication among the members of the Association.⁴ In 2007, the Association's Charter even posited an ambitious bid to create a regional identity in Southeast Asia.⁵

However, participation in the regional association did not imply the desire of the ASEAN countries to be transnational or supranational, but rather expressed the desire of the participants to form an institutional format for peaceful coordination of positions. ⁶ Against the background of the global confrontation between the two blocs, many conflict situations between the Association members themselves were perceived as secondary and were "frozen" for several decades. International norms created within the framework of ASEAN have smoothed out the scope of the use of violent methods in resolving conflict issues by countries in the region, but they have not led to a complete rejection of them.

The ASEAN strategy was initially based on its own specific principles. The main, but not always openly declared, task of the Association was to maintain its intermediate and, if possible, autonomous position in relation to major non-regional powers in order to prevent the emergence of a large-scale conflict in the region with their participation. At the same time, the presence of dividing lines within the region itself increased the risk of such a collision, and their leveling, on the contrary, "worked" for the Association's goals. Thus, the real aspiration of ASEAN was not to integrate as much as possible, but to reduce the risk of inter-State confrontation with external participation.

The possibilities of resolving contradictions between the participants of the integration grouping themselves, as some researchers believe, ⁷ were initially limited by the basic parameters that were laid down in the foundation of ASEAN's activities - the principles of sovereign equality and non-interference in each other's internal affairs.⁸ However, a closer analysis shows that the very concept of "non-interference" in the case of ASEAN countries also had its own specifics.

These principles were not initially intended to allow the countries of Southeast Asia to resolve their internal or border problems independently, but rather to provide immunity to the social forces that controlled the political and economic situation in the countries of the region. That is why, in order to ensure economic development that could make communism an unattractive alternative in the eyes of the population, the inter-State contradictions of the founding countries of ASEAN were relegated to the background. The same logic dictated an appeal to the principle of non-intervention in the post-cold war situation. It was then that the ruling elites of the region had to use it to protect the political and economic regimes that had been formed in their countries from calls from the West to establish a more liberal order in ^the region9. The above examples prove that in both cases, the settlement of border contradictions between the countries of the region was not given special priority.

As a result, at the new historical stage, integration in Southeast Asia has no longer been able to act as a universal tool for resolving disputes, especially those related to territorial issues and external dimensions of internal ethno-confessional problems. While the ASEAN collective action mechanism, which was generally formed by the end of the 1990s, allowed the Association to achieve its goals quite successfully in the international arena, within the region, unexpectedly for many members of the Association, contradictions between the Association members themselves, as well as unresolved territorial disputes of the ASEAN countries and other countries, began to come to the fore. China.

2

It is necessary to take into account the fact that South-East Asia is a region that is developing in the future.-

The rogo as an international political community began only after the Second World War. Many of the borders of modern Southeast Asian countries were formed during the colonial period, and in some cases they are artificial in nature. To date, no special attention has been paid to solving a number of border issues.

Until now, some state borders are based on agreements made at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries, concluded not by the countries of the region themselves, but by former colonial powers and only sometimes with the participation of Southeast Asian States, as was the case with Siam10. For example, the border demarcation between Thailand and Laos is closely related to the parameters defined by the Franco-Siamese treaty of 1907, and between Thailand and Malaysia - the Anglo-Siamese border protocol of 1909. The Border Protocol consolidated the agreements reached by the Siamese and British sides that Kedah, Perlis and Kelantan were included in British Malaya, while Siam retained Pattani and Satun. At the same time, from an ethnic point of view, all the listed territories were inhabited mainly by the Malay population. As a result, for almost all of its independent existence, Malaysia has considered the processes taking place in the southern provinces of Thailand as a matter of its national security. It is no coincidence that during a period of particularly strained relations between the central government of Thailand and the Muslim south, Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad even made a proposal to grant Thailand's southern provinces autonomous status.¹¹

The Philippines-Malaysia border is a result of the 1930 Convention between the United States and Great Britain. The conflict between Malaysia and the Philippines over Sabah is rooted in the history of the British North Borneo Company, which concluded a treaty with the Sultan of Sulu in 1878 (the territory of the Sulu archipelago is now part of the Philippines) about the use of this territory. The Philippines ' position is based on the fact that the company's loss of its rights to the territorial jurisdiction of Sabah in 1948 meant that it was automatically returned to Philippine control as the successor of the Sultanate, and not transferred to the British colonial possessions.

It is paradoxical that, having existed within the framework of a single integration association for more than a decade, some of the ASEAN member countries moved to resolve territorial disputes only in the 2000s. At the same time, the settlement of territorial issues is seen by many countries of the region primarily as a way to strengthen their own sovereignty, and not as a means of moving along the path of integration.¹² In particular, border issues between Malaysia and Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, and Vietnam and Cambodia were largely influenced by this logic. Meanwhile, conflicts continue to smolder, which are either still in a latent stage, or have passed into a semi-open or even open phase.

Unresolved territorial disputes remain between the Philippines and Malaysia (over the Malaysian state of Sabah), between Malaysia and Indonesia (over the delineation of the continental shelf in the Seleb Sea), between Thailand and Malaysia (over the delineation of the continental shelf in the Gulf of Thailand), between Thailand and Cambodia (over the Preah Vihear Temple and the Sea of Thailand). The Gulf of Thailand border dispute), not to mention the Spratly Islands dispute, which also involves China in addition to Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, and the Philippines. ¹³ The content of major territorial disputes between ASEAN countries is summarized in Table 1.

The most revealing example is the Thai-Cambodian conflict over the issue of security.-

Table 1.

Major territorial disputes and conflict issues in relations between ASEAN member States

Table 1. Continued

Sources: Collins A. The Security Dilemmas of Southeast Asia / A. Collins. L.: Macmillan press LTD, 200. P. 100 - 102; Weatherbee D.E. International Relations in Southeast Asia: The Struggle for Autonomy / D.E. Weatherbee. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2009. P. 133 - 145.

the area where the Preah Vihear Temple is located (tai. Phra Vihan). From a formal point of view, the territorial dispute was resolved back in 1962, when the International Court of Justice decided to transfer the mentioned territory and the temple to the jurisdiction of Cambodia. Nevertheless, the question of ownership of the territory surrounding the temple is actively used by the nationalist forces of both countries in their own political interests. From this point of view, unresolved inter-State conflicts in Southeast Asia serve an important function: as the case of Thailand and Cambodia shows, they create a temptation for the political elite to divert the attention of the population from internal problems at the expense of aggravating external issues.

Since 2003, the Thai-Cambodian dispute has experienced a series of escalations, the most serious of which occurred in 2011 with the use of armed forces of both sides, resulting in human casualties. It is noteworthy that both sides consistently neglected the consultation mechanism stipulated in the 1976 Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation and the opportunities provided for in Article 22 of the ASEAN Charter for resolving conflict issues between the Association's members.¹⁴ At the same time, Thailand prefers to discuss this issue exclusively on a bilateral basis, while Cambodia's approach is based on appealing to international support through the UN Security Council.¹⁵

In terms of integration cooperation, ASEAN sets itself tasks that are much more ambitious than many other Asian integration associations and, in fact, has a mandate to respond promptly to all forms of security threats that may arise in the region16. At the same time, existing territorial disputes are resolved not through the ASEAN instruments or the ASEAN Regional Security Forum (ARF), but through the use of external international mechanisms or at the bilateral level. In the latter case, as the example of Thailand and Cambodia demonstrates, the resolution process can be imitative, which threatens to escalate the conflict with any imbalance in the internal political situation. At the same time, it is difficult to imagine a situation in which a demilitarized zone would be created between such members of the European Union as, for example, Great Britain and Spain along the line of demarcation between Spanish territory and Gibraltar. However, it is this mechanism of preventive dip-

lomatii had to be applied in the case of the Thailand-Cambodia conflict in the summer ^of 2011,17 although both countries are members of ASEAN and, as it should follow from this fact, share a common desire for integration.

* * *

Thus, the specific nature of integration processes in South-East Asia does not allow us to hope that the problems discussed can be fully resolved through the ASEAN mechanism. This is one of the complications inherent in East Asian integration, affecting not only the dimension of inter-State relations within the Association, but also ASEAN's relations with non-regional Powers and affecting international relations in general. It is obvious that the aggravation of the internal political problems of the countries of Southeast Asia is quite capable of projecting outward, calling into question the ability of the Association. Such a development is not beneficial for those countries that, like Russia, rely in their foreign policy strategy not only on positive relations with individual countries in the region, but also on interaction with ASEAN as a collective player. Just as ASEAN benefits from Russia's presence in the region, along with other major players, in order to "seal" the regional space, ¹⁸ it is also in Russia's interests to preserve the subjectivity of ASEAN as a partner at the regional level. It is precisely this partnership that can allow the Russian side to find support for its initiatives in Southeast and wider Southeast Asia relatively independently of the political line of such major participants in regional processes as the United States or China.

Resume

The article deals with a complex of unresolved interstate territorial contradictions in the countries of Southeast Asia. These differences continue to exist in the region, despite the fact that all Southeast Asian countries are members of a single integration grouping - the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). At the same time, the problems generated by border disputes have an impact not only on the level of bilateral relations, but also on the capacity of the organization as a whole, and, consequently, on the ability of ASEAN to pursue an independent course in international affairs. Limiting the subjectivity of ASEAN proves to be unprofitable for countries such as Russia, which are interested in the Association as a collective player in East Asia.

Keywords: ASEAN; conflict; territorial conflicts; South-East Asia; integration.

Abstract

The author deals with the complex of unresolved intergovernmental territorial conflicts in the Southeast Asia. There are still major political differences and disputes between regional powers despite the fact that they are all party to an integration grouping ASEAN. At the same time the disagreements between them influence not only their bilateral relations but the whole regional system and pose a threat to integration. Limitation of ASEAN as a subject of international relations is a disadvantageous factor for Russia.

Keywords: ASEAN; integration; Southeast Asia; international disputes.

Notes

¹ Eurobarometer 75. Europeans, the European Union and the Crisis. Spring 2011. Режим доступа: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/eb/eb75/eb75_cri_en.pdf. P. 12.

² The European Union and Border Conflicts. The Power of Integration and Association / Ed. by Th. Diez, M.Albert, S. Stetter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. P. 2 - 3.

³ In the early 1960s. Indonesia has declared a line of confrontation (Indonesia). confrontasi) course of the political elite of Malaya and Great Britain on the formation of the Federation of Malaysia with the inclusion of Singapore, Sarawak and Sabah in its composition. In turn, the Philippines claimed its historical rights in Sabah (For more details, see Maletin and ASEAN: Four Decades of Development. [Maletin N. P. ASEAN: chetire desatiletia razvitia] M.: MGIMO-University, 2007. pp. 13, 14,274).

⁴ Kivimaki T. Op. cit. - P. 442.

⁵ The ASEAN Charter. Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat, 2007. P. 5.

^{Bogaturov A.D.} Great Powers in the Pacific Ocean. History and Theory of International Relations in East Asia after the Second World War (1945-1995) / A. D. Bogaturov. [Bogaturov A.D. Velikie dergavi na Tihom okeane. Istoria I teoria mezhdunarodnih otnosheni v Vostochnoi Azii posle vtoroi mirovoi voini.] - M.: Konvert-MONTF, 1997. - Cc. 201-202.

⁷ См., например: Narine Sh. Forty Years of ASEAN: a Historical Review / Sh. Narine // The Pacific Review. - 2008 (December). - Vol.21, No.4 -P.424 - 425

⁸ Declaration of ASEAN Concord, 24 February 1976 (http://www.asean.org/1216.htm).

^{Jones L.} 9 ASEAN's unchanged melody? The theory and practice on "non-interference" in Southeast Asia/L. Jones // The Pacific Review. -2010 (September). - Vol.23, No.4. - P. 484 - 485.

¹⁰ Siam - the official name of modern Thailand before 1939.

¹¹ Violence in the South: Mahathir proposes autonomous region / The Nation (http://www.nationmultimedia.com/home/VIOLENCE-IN-THE-SOUTH- Mahathir-proposes-autonomous-108232.html).

^{Amer R.} 12 The management of Vietnam's border

disputes: what impact on its sovereignty and regional integration? / R. Amer, H.Th. Nguyen // Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International and Strategic Studies. - 2005 [December). Vol.27, No.5. P.429 - 452.

^{Weatherbee D.E.} 13 International Relations in

Southeast Asia: The Struggle for Autonomy / D.E. Weatherbee. Lanham: Rowman S. Littlefield Publishers, 2009. P. 133 - 148.

¹⁴ Article 22 provides that members of the Association must resolve all disputes that arise peacefully through dialogue, consultation and negotiation. ASEAN should establish and maintain appropriate dispute resolution mechanisms in all areas of Association cooperation (The ASEAN Charter. Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat, 2007. P. 23).

^{Chachavalpongpun P.} 15 The Reasons Behind the

Thai-Cambodia Conflict / P. Chachavalpongpun // The Irrawaddy. February 10, 2011.

¹⁶ The ASEAN Charter. Jakarta: ASEAN Secretariat, 2007. P.4.

^{Fuller Th.} 17 U.N. Court Orders Troops From

Temple on Thai-Cambodian Border / Th. Fuller // The New York Times. 18.07.2011.

^{Bogaturov A.D.} Great Powers in the Pacific Ocean. History and Theory of International Relations in East Asia after the Second World War (1945-1995) / A. D. Bogaturov. [Bogaturov A.D. Velikie dergavi na Tihom okeane. Istoria I teoria mezhdunarodnih otnosheni v Vostochnoi Azii posle vtoroi mirovoi voini] Moscow: Konvert-MONTF, 1997. p. 212; Sumsky V. Why we were not in YOU and why now we are called there / V. Sumsky // Security index. -2011. Volume 17. N2 (97). - P. 43 [Sumski V. Pochemu nas ne bilo v VAS I pochemu nas tuda zovut].

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