“The Philippines, as an independent sovereign nation, must not be treated as trash by a foreign nation,” said President Duerte’s spokesman in 2019, responding to years of the country being a dumping ground for Canada. For decades, Southeast Asians were widely treated as “dirty workers,” exposed to degraded environments, toxic chemicals, and even blamed for 60 percent of ocean waste.

What is often overlooked, though, is that a large portion of the plastic waste originates from developed countries and more importantly, brought into Southeast Asia through waste trade—an international trade of disposed materials. Towards the late 20th century, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members and China reluctantly agreed to this trade as a move to offset raw material shortages for industrialization. However, hazardous waste has been illegally transported to these primarily import-based countries, leaving prolonged challenges to their environment, public health, and national development.

Due to the political pull of the West, Southeast Asian countries remained silent about these unethical and illegal practices until recently. In 2019, the Philippines announced it had returned 68 containers, roughly 1,500 tons of mislabeled rubbish, back to Canada, finally drawing global attention to this historical abuse by developed countries against ASEAN countries.

Notorious Waste Trade

In 1989, in Switzerland, 53 countries signed the Basel Convention—an international treaty meant to reduce hazardous waste trafficking and promote environmentally friendly management, thus keeping all member nations from the harm of such waste.

Despite its good intentions, the convention vaguely defined terms like “hazardous” and “waste”, which left a loophole for exporting countries to take advantage of, resulting in the illegal trafficking of plastic waste. Exporting countries, like Canada, mark their trash as “recyclable”, send it to Southeast Asian countries, and then absolve themselves of the responsibility of dealing hazardous waste. Consequently, the environmental responsibility is shifted from exporting countries to importing ones. With the waste trade in effect, importing countries like the Philippines hardly resist due to the economic and political incentives; not to mention that in many cases, importing countries failed to identify the hazardous waste.

Moreover, countries like the United States, the world’s second biggest plastic waste producer, never ratified the 1989 Basel Convention. Without doing so, the United States can continue to freely export millions of tons of waste yearly, with a total of 436 million kg in 2019 alone. As the United States is not bound by the Convention, the huge amount of trash has remained unprocessed, leaving the waste trading even more unconstrained.

Last Straw on the Camel

In 2017, China became the first to restrict its waste imports, marking the beginning of the resistance from the East; in 2018, China prohibited the import of solid waste, officially turning the “restriction” into a ban. While this ban relieved China from the waste issue, it left the huge burden of global waste to its unprepared ASEAN neighbors. Without China, ASEAN countries lacked the ability to properly handle the huge amount of waste, which leads to larger implications for the local environment, economy, and public health. 

Indonesia, for example, due to inefficient construction of its domestic trash collection system and low environmental awareness, has to apply some unethical ways to process its waste: burning over 80 percent of waste, with the rest discarded into waterways. Similarly, Thailand expressed its concern over the negative implications of waste trade on citizens’ health and the local environment. These substandard solutions leave a significant contamination issue: the unprocessed wastes have contaminated the food chain, exposing citizens to toxins that might cause serious health issues like cancer, diabetes, and other deficiencies in the immune system. 

Regarding the concerns over local management capacity and environmental impacts, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand,and Cambodia each publicly announced, to varying extents, their determination to combat the waste trade following China’s ban.

National Dignity

Besides the inability to properly process the waste, ASEAN countries have also experienced a national dignity crisis, limiting future growth. Waste trade and resulting environmental degradation have greatly sullied their regional reputation on the international stage, incurring a very negative image of ASEAN countries as unsanitary places.

With rising global awareness of environmental sustainability, the environmental condition has an increasing impact on the national reputation, deterring foreign investment and inbound tourism in ASEAN countries, and impeding potential economic transformation. Considering the potential cost of environmental management and reputational damage, environmentally friendly brands tend to avoid investing in ASEAN countries, obstructing their efforts to transform from “dumping sites” to sustainable development. Additionally, improperly processed waste also deters tourists, further damaging the image of these countries as travel destinations.

To secure sustainable development, resistance to waste trade thus becomes indispensable. Nonetheless, members in ASEAN are small nations with insufficient negotiation power or leverage. To achieve the regional developmental goal, it is challenging for these smaller entities to negotiate with bigger players without working as a whole on the international stage. Therefore, ASEAN countries chose to negotiate as a whole and published their joint statement on control over marine debris.

Rise of ASEAN Collaboration

Since its foundation in 1967, ASEAN has demonstrated strong solidarity, enabling regional success and autonomy, which enabled it to cut a better deal in the waste trade negotiation this time. 

The economic integration and free trade among members increased GDP from US$2.3 trillion to US$3.5 trillion through regional trade. Their vital position in the global supply chain also positions them strategically amid Sino-US disputes, especially when the US urges to prevent China’s control over Southeast Asia and the South China Sea. Thus, ASEAN’s solidarity brings a regional economic success and guarantees its role in geopolitical complexities.

Meanwhile, ASEAN has leveraged China’s rise to decouple from the West. By strengthening ties through the Belt and Road Initiative, ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement, and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, China has become the most important strategic partner of ASEAN. ASEAN seized the opportunity and swiftly shifted parts of its trade with China while reducing its reliance on the Western market.

With solid economic autonomy, ASEAN narrows the negotiation gap with the Global North. The resistance toward waste trade this time thus demonstrates ASEAN’s rising international influence, marking its strategic success.

From a Uni-Polar to Multi-Polar World

ASEAN is not the only regional party navigating China’s rise and the decline of dollar hegemony. As the world shifts from uni-polarization to multi-polarization, numerous regional collaborations have emerged to reposition themselves globally.

For example, African nations formed the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to promote intra-African trading and industrialization, under which members created the world’s largest trade area, strengthening their competitiveness and international position. 

Moreover, the Caribbean Community also enhances economic integration and policy coordination. The uniting of these small islands thus wins them the respected position in the international community, most notably in their advocacy for global climate change.

For ASEAN, resistance to the waste trade is just the beginning. The competition of small nations for their own interest keeps playing out in this multi-polar world. While the big muscles are fighting with each other, small nations are forming alliances to maintain their position in the ever-changing global order.