ASEAN must focus on big issues

ASEAN must focus on big issues

The Nation, Asia News Network, Bangkok

A time of crisis or of great change requires exceptional undertakings and the exercise of courage. In many ways, this is what the people expect of their leaders. Can the three nations of ASEAN with, as Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong put it, "less domestic priorities" get together and pull ASEAN out of limbo? In many ways, the Singapore prime minister was quite right when he told editors from the Asia News Network, an alliance of leading English-language newspapers in Asia, that if ASEAN leaders could just sit down together and exchange their experiences in handling the economic crisis and subsequent transition, the world would see that the region has a chance to "click together and therefore pull economies up".

But the leaders are not talking frequently or frankly enough. In fact, instead of cooperating, some are even competing with each other for business. For the region this is a zero sum game as the game is not always about Malaysia or Thailand versus China but ASEAN versus China. Likewise, the opportunities are not always about an individual ASEAN nation and China but the entire region and China.

So what needs to be done to get the leaders of the three ASEAN nations to meet and discuss strategies to lift ASEAN economically. For one thing, Singapore and Malaysia should quickly agree on their new bilateral agreement package and ease a recent phase of antagonism.

Secondly, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, as the most senior of the ASEAN leaders, should take the lead in organizing the get-together. His Malaysian legacy is well established and he now needs to do the same for ASEAN. If he and Goh Chok Tong look over their shoulders, both will see that some of the ways they are competing against one another to win business -- port and airport fee discounts, for example -- is destructive in the long run.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra almost certainly will move with the two. He is, after all, the youngest of the three and wants to get Asian nations to act as one. But one has to start nearest to home. Following his government's effort to improve relations with Burma, ASEAN is an obvious stepping stone for his vision of Asia-wide dialog.

There are a host of reasons why the three most stable ASEAN nations could meet. It does not mean the neglect of other members such as the Philippines and Indonesia. Whatever the three ASEAN leaders decide, the meeting will reflect positively on other ASEAN members as well.

Last but not least, improved dialog may not be about any particular rationale but a means of overcoming the egos of individual leaders and an exercise in courage to pursue long-term interests for the region. In the final analysis, there is no cost to having a frank exchange of views and to seeing others as committed partners.

But if they do not act, it would be a form of self- condemnation -- they cannot blame anyone but themselves.