ASEAN told not to become political power
Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post, Bandung
Indonesia's former foreign minister Ali Alatas has warned the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) plus three East Asian countries, or ASEAN+3 (APT), against being tempted to become a regional political power.
Alatas, who was a key speaker at Dialog Forum IX co-organized by the Agency for Policy Studies and Development and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Bandung on Wednesday, expressed optimism that the organization, set up in December 1967, would grow into a major force if it focused on economic and financial cooperation.
He said that as a body of commodity exporting countries, APT would be a vast grouping with its market of 500 million people in the ASEAN nations people plus the populations of the other three members -- Japan, South Korea and the People's Republic of China.
"There are substantive policy differences between ASEAN and the three East Asian nations. Japan, for instance, is part of the American alliance and China is a large single country," Alatas told the forum, which was attended by a number of ex-ambassadors, senior journalists and university observers.
Political and security cooperation, in his view, should be handled by the ASEAN Regional Forum already functioning. "If APT is trapped into becoming a political power, I'm afraid the 13 APT members may only be preoccupied with conflicts with other countries rather than their economic recovery," he indicated.
The lure of a political or security role was seen by Alatas as APT's potential barrier arising from current world security conditions, besides the regional cooperation hurdle in East Asia, where several sovereignty disputes and claims are prevalent due to cultural, political and economic diversity.
"Despite its tranquil and stable appearance, East Asia's political environment still bears a lot of risk of conflicts that can threaten successful regional cooperation within APT," he cautioned the meeting, titled "ASEAN+3 Cooperation: Expectations and Challenges".
In its history, he added, APT was not free from the shadow of politics either. In the early 1990s Malaysian Premier Mahathir Mohamad proposed the East Asia Economic Caucus (EAEC) between ASEAN countries, which was strongly opposed by the US and Japan for its political slant.
APT could eventually be formed owing to its affirmation that it would be an organization concentrating on economic pursuits.
"In fact, it has lately been implicitly acknowledged that APT is EAEC under another name," he maintained.
Alatas suggested that for the moment APT should not increase its membership though in principle the association remains open- ended, as conflicts are likely to emerge with new members. "Avoid starting with too much legality, including secretariat affairs, which may hamper concentration on economic matters," he said.
The same tone came from Foreign Minister Nur Hassan Wirayuda who said in a written message that Indonesia should examine the various possibilities envisaged by APT since 2000 like the East Asia Summit, the East Asia Free Trade Area, the Initiative for East Asia Development and the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area.
"On the one hand, the projects can boost ASEAN's global competitiveness, but ASEAN's preparedness to face such cooperation patterns should also be considered in order to ensure maximum benefit," the minister noted.
Furthermore, "ASEAN has to do with three powerful East Asian countries while the association itself still takes time for consolidation to handle its development gap," Hassan concluded.