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.