ASEAN still a valuable regional forum for dialog
ASEAN still a valuable regional forum for dialog
By Lee Kim Chew
SINGAPORE: ASEAN, aged 33, suffers from post-crisis trauma, but is it ageing prematurely as a sunset organisation?
A rhetorical question, perhaps, but it sounds pretty downbeat, given the perceptions, as Foreign Minister S. Jayakumar noted, that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations is weak and ineffective.
It failed to muster a collective response to the region's financial crisis, and is still muddling through, unable to dispel doubts about its recovery.
Clearly, the 10-member grouping could call for a steroid shot to stay in contention, as the East Asian countries pull themselves up by their bootstraps and race further ahead.
ASEAN's problem is that each member-state is too preoccupied with doing its own thing, and Indonesia, the worst affected with political and economic uncertainties, is unable to bite the bullet and take the necessary bitter medicine.
No matter how they tinker with the system, ASEAN countries cannot avoid the reforms that are needed to restore confidence.
Do ASEAN members know what they must do? Yes. Do they have a workable plan? Maybe. Can they get their act together? No.
This goes to the heart of the matter. There is a singular lack of collective will, if not leadership, to do the right things.
Take the backsliding on the ASEAN Free Trade Area (Afta). Some members have gone for the soft option -- relying on protection and delaying opening up markets at a time when the global environment has become more competitive.
Stalling on Afta sends out the wrong signals which will not spur recovery.
Economics was outside the purview of the foreign ministers who met in Bangkok last week to address some of ASEAN's current difficulties. For them, it is a dismal science.
They did, however, send the pulse racing with the agreement for an ASEAN Troika, an ad hoc ministerial body to fix urgent problems affecting regional peace and security.
It is a new diplomatic tool to prove ASEAN's viability, and it will be as useful as its 10 members allow it to be.
The question is: What happens when there is a non- interventionist in the chair under its rotating system? He could be prodded into action, but no initiative can be undertaken without the consensus of all 10 countries.
This will be a big stumbling block. The ASEAN Troika was deployed to settle a violent internal power struggle in Cambodia in 1997.
It worked then because ASEAN has had a long history of involvement to bring peace back to Cambodia, and the Cambodians, who were anxious to join ASEAN, found it hard to resist foreign intervention.
Could the troika be used now to end the bloody sectarian violence in the Maluku Islands? Indonesia says no, this is a domestic affair. End of story, however bad the contagion effects for ASEAN.
The grouping could still redeem itself. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) has proven its worth as a platform for the big powers to get engaged. Significantly, the Chinese have pledged full support for it, as have the Americans. And the reclusive North Koreans are now its member.
Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer proposed that there be "friends of the chair" to strengthen the ARF. In other words, help ASEAN drive the forum to make it more effective.
Australia's interest to get into the ARF's driving seat is understandable, as it seeks fulfilment as a regional power.
But its interventionist concept of preventive diplomacy is too intrusive for ASEAN, China and India, which do not want to give any outside power an excuse to meddle in their internal politics.
Australia is also too close to the Americans for China's comfort. Put bluntly, it is essential for the ARF to be ASEAN- driven for the Chinese to stay aboard.
As Jayakumar noted, the ARF is still in a confidence-building mode, and the role of preventive diplomacy, which means different things to different people, needs to be clarified and defined.
As things stand, ASEAN fills a void, no matter how feeble it has been in dealing with some of South-east Asia's pressing issues.
It remains a cornerstone of regional stability, and those who want to write its obituary are forgetting this. ASEAN has its uses yet, and the suspicion about its impending demise is grossly exaggerated.
The writer is chief regional correspondent of The Straits Times.
-- The Straits Times / Asia News Network