ASEAN summit yields major results

ASEAN summit yields major results

By Jusuf Wanandi

JAKARTA (JP): The fifth ASEAN summit in Bangkok on Dec. 14-15,
1995 has ended with more practical results than expected before.
ASEAN's Leaders Meetings have not been held frequently and their
results have been uneven.

The first one in Bali (1976) was basic, following a period of
consolidation of almost 10 years and the changed strategic
circumstances after the fall of Saigon in 1975.

These two challenges were responded to, respectively, by two
treaties: the ASEAN Concord on ASEAN's cooperation in the future
and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC).

The second summit in Kuala Lumpur (1977) worked out the
aspects of economic cooperation in the ASEAN Concord, and began
high-level consultations with other leaders in the Asia Pacific,
especially Japan.

The third Summit in Manila (1987), ten years after Kuala
Lumpur, was held mainly to support President Corazon Aquino's
regime in the Philippines which was challenged by insurgencies
(both Communist and religious) as well as insubordination and
coup attempts by the military. It also stressed the importance of
functional cooperation and promoted new ideas of economic
cooperation through ASEAN's private sector.

The fourth summit in Singapore (1992), the first after the end
of the Cold War, was a significant one. It created the ASEAN Free
Trade Area (AFTA) regime for trade liberalization and agreed on
ASEAN's political-security cooperation and endorsed the setting-
up of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), an institution for CBM and
preventive diplomacy that in the longer term hopefully will
become a conflict resolution mechanism for the entire Asia
Pacific region.

The recent summit in Bangkok also produced significant
results. The highlights of the summit were: (1) a first meeting
of the leaders of the ten South East Asian countries including
Vietnam as the youngest ASEAN member and the three non-ASEAN
countries: Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar (the so-called CLM
countries). This is the most important and strategic achievement
of this summit, because it opened up a real possibility that the
idea of an ASEAN-10, as conceived by ASEAN's founding fathers,
could become a reality before the end of the century.

Cambodia and Laos will become members in 1997 and Myanmar
possibly in 1999. All three acceded to the TAC and were observers
of ASEAN in 1976. Question have been raised in the media and
among academics whether it is good for ASEAN to have a "widening"
of membership before "deepening" of cooperation, among others
through AFTA. This is the same challenge faced by the European
Union in implementing the Maastricht Treaty first, before Central
Europe and the Baltic state can be considered to become the next
members of the EU.

For ASEAN, the chance of establishing an ASEAN-10 is of
paramount importance not only because it was a romantic dream at
the creation of ASEAN in 1967, but also because it is of
strategic importance, for the promotion of peace and welfare of
the Southeast Asia region in the future. The main objective is
definitely to prevent the division of Southeast Asia into two
parts: one rich (ASEAN) and one poor (CLM countries). Such a
division will be the surest source of future instabilities in the
region, which could be "exploited" by outside powers.

On a practical level, the CLM countries could accelerate their
economic development and strengthen political stability with
ASEAN's help. ASEAN's assistance could include human resource
development and the sharing of development experiences. ASEAN
could also become an interlocutor in mobilizing financial
assistance from third countries.

The welcoming of the CLM countries into ASEAN will definitely
create some strains on the process of decision-making and on the
unique "style" of ASEAN's tolerance, consensus and political
culture. ASEAN leaders have recognized this and therefore have
encouraged the granting of assistance to help the CLM countries
immediately and not to wait until they become members of ASEAN.

If the experiences of ASEAN ISIS (Institutes of Strategic and
International Studies) for the last five years with all ten
Southeast Asian countries in political-security and economic
cooperation (two series of conferences) could give some guidance,
where understanding and goodwill have been created and gradually
increased over the years, then the difficulties that ASEAN will
undoubtedly have to face will not be insurmountable.

In the longer term ASEAN-10 will be an important factor for
peace, stability and dynamism for Southeast Asia and an important
player in the development of the Asia Pacific region.

The second important decision in Bangkok was the signing of
the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (SEANWFZ) by the 10
Southeast Asian nations. This is Southeast Asian's contribution
to strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and
supporting the Complete Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which is to be
finalized in 1996. Basically SEANWFZ follows the Rarotonga Treaty
on the South Pacific nuclear free region which forbids the
signatories to posses, produce, store or test nuclear weapons
without limiting the shipments of nuclear weapons or nuclear
powered vessels, including port calls.

The only difference is the delineation of the region which in
SEANWFZ includes the continental shelves and Exclusive Economic
Zone (EEZ) of the Southeast Asian countries in accordance with
the UN Treaty on the Law of the Sea. This has been questioned by
the nuclear powers, especially the United States that has
withheld her consent to sign the attached protocol.

China has a special case due to her claims on part of the
overlapping EEZ and continental shelves of the Southeast Asian
countries in the South China Sea area. Despite the fact that the
nuclear powers are not willing to support the Treaty as it stands
now it is hoped that the technical-legal objections could be
accommodated in the near future. And since this is not political
in nature as it was before in the U.S. case, this should be
relatively easy.

The Chinese objection could be more complicated, and should be
studied more carefully.

In the meantime it is heartening to note that the Chinese
would like to base her claims in the South China Sea on the Law
of the Sea. Based on the law, it will not be impossible to find a
solution to China's objection. Anyhow, the leaders have gone
ahead with signing the Treaty in Bangkok while recognizing that
the attached protocol could be reviewed after consultations with
the nuclear powers to find a resolution to their reservations. It
is hoped that this can be achieved before the ratification by the
seven signatories which will make the Treaty operational.

The summit also decided to: (1) develop the ARF into a more
meaningful process to ensuring Asia Pacific security; (2) look
for an early and peaceful resolution of the South China Sea
disputes; (3) take an active part in the first (Asia-Europe
Meeting) ASEM next March, to build a new partnership between both
continents for greater growth.

The third major decision is to hasten the pace of AFTA's
completion, from 2008 (15 years) to 2003 (10 years), with
voluntary efforts to be made by the year 2000, on a large number
of items.

In addition, there are other important decisions: (1) a
framework for the liberalization of trade in services, such as
finance, maritime transport, aviation, telecommunications,
tourism and construction; (2) cooperation on intellectual
property rights issues; (3) promotion of an ASEAN investment
region, to make it attractive and competitive for direct
investment; (4) implementation of a new industrial cooperation
scheme to boost investment in technological and value-added
industries; (5) cooperation in investments and transfer of
technology; (6) greater involvement of the private sector, in
ASEAN policy-makings; (6) playing an active role in shaping
global issues through such fora as the WTO and APEC; (7)
continuing efforts to advance the East Asia Economic Caucus; (8)
adoption of a general dispute settlement mechanism to deal with
problems arising from ASEAN economic arrangements; (9) setting up
of a customs "green lane" for quick clearance of products in the
CEPT.

Fourth, is its emphasis on the importance of functional
cooperation, particularly in social areas, since this provides
the guarantee that the main objective of ASEAN cooperation,
namely to improve the status, income and participation of ASEAN
countries citizens, especially the underprivileged and most
common people are not being forgotten. In this context the
proposal from the Thai Foreign Minister Kasem Kasemsri at the
last ASEAN Ministers Meeting (AMM), in July in Brunei Darussalam,
has to be noted. He proposed that a way in ASEAN has to be found
to make the people more aware of ASEAN by encouraging their
participation in ASEAN's activities and at the same time
providing a feed-back to the bureaucrats and officials, who up
till now have been the most involved in ASEAN's programs. While
the EU has an European parliament, ASEAN on its part could
develop a more informal participatory mechanism.

As an example, during APEC's Ministers and Leaders Meetings
in Jakarta and Osaka, non-governmental organizations such as PECC
(Pacific Economic Cooperation Council) and PBEC (Pacific Basin
Economic Council) organized a large-scale meeting for
businessmen, academics and the media with government officials
and leaders, giving some sense of participation to the non-
officials. This in the meantime has become an important tradition
which will be continued next year in Manila.

In Bangkok, between the Ministers and Leaders Meeting, the
ASEAN CCI, also organized a big seminar for ASEAN business
leaders in future ASEAN economic cooperation and business
participation. These type of meetings around the Summit or AMM
can be organized by the most important and active ASEAN NGOs
registered at the ASEAN Secretariat. They could meet separately
but at the end they should come together with government
officials.

This idea still has to be worked out in detail, but it is
vital to make ASEAN more viable in the future because of the
importance of ASEANs people's participation and commitment. This
is especially true because ASEAN's future cooperation in the
various fields will be more intensive and will have a much
greater effect than now. Especially in the social field,
cooperation has been stressed in: (1) raising awareness of ASEAN
among citizens, especially the young generation; (2) upgrade
human resources through education and technology transfers; (3)
promote strong family values; (4) effective participation for
women and enhance ASEAN programs on children and youth; (5)
create a drug-free ASEAN; (6) strengthen teamwork on fighting
AIDS; (7) strive towards technological competitiveness.

During the Southeast ASEAN-10 Leaders meeting more items
have been discussed, among others the Mekong Delta development in
cooperation between the ten nations. There will also be an
informal summit of Southeast Asian Leaders every year, starting
in Jakarta at the end of next year, where other leaders from East
Asia such as Japan, China, and Korea will also be invited. These
ideas are all very exciting and is a sure sign that ASEAN is not
only alive, but expanding with new ideas, plans and programs. It
definitely is not true that a summit only produces prepared
ideas.

The writer is chairman of the supervisory board of the Centre
for Strategic and International Studies.

Window: For ASEAN, the chance of establishing an ASEAN-10 is of
paramount importance not only because it was a romantic dream at
the creation of ASEAN in 1967, but also because it is of
strategic importance, for the promotion of peace and welfare of
the Southeast Asia region in the future.