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ASEAN Credibility:ON THE EDGE OF CHANGE?, by G V C Naidu,13 March 2009 Print E-mail

Events & Issues

New Delhi, 13 March 2009  

ASEAN Credibility

ON THE EDGE OF CHANGE?

By G V C Naidu

The Association of South East Asian Nations has witnessed a historic moment with the signing of an agreement to create an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015 and attempt to fundamentally transform the association in a variety of ways. Called the Cha-am Hua Hin Declaration following the ASEAN summit meeting held in Thailand, it purports to make ASEAN chart a new course for itself, not just in terms of enhanced economic cooperation and integration but to increase its political weight considerably as well.

By adopting a Charter, whose progress needs to be watched, ASEAN now has become a rules-based regional multilateral organization. True, ASEAN, comprising the 10 countries of South East Asia- Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar- has come a long way since its founding in 1967, in creating a sense of purpose and belonging and to an extent political and economic cooperation.

However, its comparison with the EU is far-fetched and unrealistic given the two entirely contrasting contexts-- historically, politically, religiously and socially. Yet, the year was significant for ASEAN in many ways and that may set the tone in deciding its future as a regional organisation in terms of its ability to play a key role not just in South East Asia but across the entire East Asian region. It could do so in promoting regional economic cooperation and, more importantly, integration, and simultaneously play a key political role in the management of regional security.

The two key decisions, taken in 2007 to create a common market and a charter that are being implemented now in a way also reflect the kind of challenges ASEAN is confronted with at this critical juncture where the entire East Asian region is undergoing a major politico-economic transformation.  

Founded in 1967 after a couple of failed attempts, although with the ostensible objectives of promoting greater economic and cultural cooperation among the members, it has never been a secret that ASEAN was a cold war creation and anti-communism was clearly its ideological orientation. Despite some initial attempts, for a variety of reasons economic cooperation failed to take off, and so-called cultural cooperation never had much resonance anyway because the member states, with the exception of Indonesia and Malaysia, were simply too disparate.

Indeed, many of the objectives that ASEAN had set out were realised much later: political cooperation during the Cambodian crisis after the Vietnamese military intervention in late 1970s and economic cooperation starting from the early 1990s along with East Asian economic dynamism.

That today South East Asia has managed to acquire a distinct political identity especially after ASEAN’s expansion is perhaps its singular contribution. The political leaders of ASEAN have bragged how different they were and their unique way of conducting business -- a typical “Southeast Asian way” - to drive home the point of their distinctness. Thanks once again mostly to ASEAN, South East Asia has emerged one of the most politically stable and economically vibrant regions in the world, and the regional organisation has become a role model for others in the developing world. 

In the immediate post-cold war period, while ASEAN thought it would take advantage of political vacuum and fluidity to position itself to emerge as an autonomous power, soon, however, realities started setting in. Two significant developments among others sorely exposed ASEAN’s own weaknesses and limitations. One, the dynamics of great powers relations started undergoing major shifts with the rise of first China and later India.

This coincided with a general decline of Japan as an economic power and America’s preoccupation with war on counter-terrorism and later military intervention in Iraq. As a result, much of the attention that was riveted on South East Asia began to get deflected to China and India. These two in particular were emerging as major economic powerhouses undermining South East Asia.

Further, political and security interest in the ASEAN region also began to wane with more serious security challenges developing in North East Asia and the Indian Ocean region. The North Korean nuclear issue, intensifying Japan-China rivalry, Taiwan issue, uncertainties about American military commitments, and Pak-Afghan region as epicenter of global terrorism emerged as focal point, diverting great power attention away from South East Asia. Two, more devastating that badly battered ASEAN’s image was the 1997-98 financial crisis. It for the first time thoroughly exposed, on one hand, the serious weaknesses of the economies of ASEAN member states, and more importantly, ASEAN’s utter helplessness in dealing with the crisis.

Yet another issue that has raised some doubts about ASEAN’s overall political ability to manage regional affairs was the large number of regional multilateral mechanism that have been created, such as APEC, the ASEAN Regional Forum, East Asia Summit, etc., which have become more of talk shops than tangible contributors either to economic cooperation or to security management.

Nevertheless, ASEAN has since recovered from the financial crisis and most of its economies had been doing fairly well till the current global economic crisis hit. Singapore is into recession and most other economies are expected to shrink drastically. While this is a serious short-term issue (unless it lingers on much longer), from a longer-term perspective, ASEAN has to find ways to showcase the economic attractiveness of South East Asia.

And, it is felt that the best way to do it to integrate their economies as quickly as possible and present a common market of nearly 570 people. It purports to remove all barriers so that free movement of goods, services and people can take place, similar to the one by the European Union, which is an ambitious goal though.

The other prominent issue at the summit meeting was the ASEAN Charter. It has come under criticism because of its ineffectiveness to deal with serious human rights violations among member States. Whereas it is imprudent to interfere in internal affairs, ASEAN’s global credibility will be at stake if it cannot address this issue. At this meeting, for instance, both Myanmar and Cambodia barred two representatives of civil society attending the first ever face-to-face meeting with ASEAN leaders creating considerable discomfort.

Political compatibility and comfort certainly are major issues but so also are the vast economic and other disparities among the ASEAN members which will need to be dealt with in the coming years. From an Indian viewpoint, a strong ASEAN contributes to regional stability and prosperity and New Delhi should do whatever it does in making it possible.--INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)




 

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