A battered ASEAN struggles for credibility

A battered ASEAN struggles for credibility

By Dean Yates

HANOI (Reuters): As Southeast Asian leaders fly into Hanoi on
Monday for an annual summit many leave behind shattered economies
and a growing tide of desperation as millions sink back into
poverty.

With members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) preoccupied with their own financial and social woes,
analysts said the overriding impression was of an ASEAN adrift,
incapable of drawing up a decisive revival plan.

Over the weekend ASEAN ministers promised so-called "bold
measures" would be implemented to remedy the immediate crisis but
details have been sketchy.

Discord over when Cambodia should enter the group only
heightened perceptions ASEAN had lost cohesion, analysts said.

Many thought the economic crisis -- which is expected to focus
high on the agenda during the Dec. 15-16 summit -- was ASEAN's
sternest test since its founding in 1967.

Some also lashed ASEAN for not breaking from its core aim of
trade reform to tackle issues such as the controversial admission
last year of Myanmar and its military junta, which has strained
the group's ties with the West.

Christopher Lingle, author of The Rise and Decline of the
Asian Century and a Hong Kong-based independent corporate
consultant, questioned the validity of the organization.

"It seems to me ASEAN has outlived its usefulness and there is
no longer a need for such a structure," he told Reuters.

"Free trade is so firmly embedded in the policies of most
ASEAN nations, and this notion was really its only effective
component. ASEAN is not capable of being supportive or critical
of political structures in partner countries so I see this as
more confirmation ASEAN is a moribund institution."

ASEAN unites almost 500 million people from Brunei, Indonesia,
Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and
Vietnam -- nations that may be neighbors but which range from
democracies to military dictatorships.

Despite the differences, ASEAN has forged many links,
something reinforced in hundreds of meetings held each year.

However, that image of cooperation has been bruised by public
bickering this year, most notably spats between Malaysia and its
neighbors Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia.

Harold Crouch, of the Australian National University in
Canberra, said people had questioned the validity of ASEAN before
but that this did not mean it had lost relevance.

"The ties between ASEAN countries have enabled the development
of infrastructure for settling disputes and this remains a
function of ASEAN even if it is failing to confront certain
crisis. It doesn't mean the organization is useless."

One Western diplomat with long experience in ASEAN said the
grouping appeared to be losing coherence amid the crippling
economic crisis but the basic need for its existence remained.

Those who questioned the validity of ASEAN ignored the logic
that the grouping was more relevant than ever, he said.

"In these circumstances, when you have such economic woes, it
is all the more reason to have ASEAN around," he said.

Alison Broinowski, a visiting fellow at the Faculty of Asian
Studies at the Australian National University, said a
generational struggle for ASEAN's soul was being waged by the old
clique and new leaders such as Thai Foreign Minister Surin
Pitsuwan.

ASEAN had to reinvent itself by tackling political issues or
risk seeing its credibility further eroded, she added.

Indeed, debate has emerged in the past six months over the
hallowed principle of non-interference in the affairs of member
states, with the youthful Surin backed by the Philippines
championing a flexible approach to sensitive ASEAN matters.

Analysts agreed the non-interference issue -- which has not
surfaced at pre-summit meetings in Hanoi -- had to be addressed
to dispel perceptions it provided a cloak for authoritarianism
and human rights abuses.

Donald Crone, professor of Politics and International
Relations at Scripps College in California, said the focus now on
sensitive issues should be how much debate and about what.

"In my view economic, ecological and other such functional
issues are on the agenda; political reform is not. Overall, I
view the modest degree of fractiousness as a healthy sign of the
growing maturity of ASEAN," he told Reuters.