ASEAN's future is at stake

ASEAN's future is at stake

By Jusuf Wanandi

JAKARTA (JP): At the same time that the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) foreign ministers met at the end
of last month in Bangkok, 10 experts from the original five
members had a two-day meeting to discuss its long term future.
What follows are some of the thoughts expressed during the
discussions.

ASEAN was created 33 years ago to jointly deal with the
uncertain aftermath of the Vietnam War and to provide a forum for
inter-regional cooperation and the prevention of possible inter-
regional conflicts in the future.

Thus, ASEAN has been a state-to-state cooperation par
excellence, with no intentions to achieve integration and become
a community. That is also why the principle of non-intervention
has been sacrosanct and explains why foreign ministers have a
dominant role in ASEAN.

While the stated purpose of the Association is to promote
economic and social cooperation, for many years ASEAN did not
develop any of those ideas. Instead, diplomacy was supreme. It
was very much a top down exercise and the public had only a
marginal role.

In a sense, ASEAN has achieved the basic objectives of its
creation. There have been no major conflicts among ASEAN members,
and since the Vietnam War, stability and peace have reigned. This
was partly due to ASEAN's efforts to prevent the often predicted
Balkanization of Southeast Asia. Indeed, this is no small
achievement!

But what about the future? In the last 30 years there have
been a lot of changes. There have been significant internal
changes within the countries and external global and regional
changes, particularly in the last decade, have created extreme
and dramatic pressures for ASEAN as a whole and for each of its
members.

The greatest impact on ASEAN has been the pressures resulting
from globalization. Its influence is all encompassing as the
financial crisis in East Asia has shown since 1997 and members
cannot adjust to these external pressures by themselves. Even
developed nations cannot cope with the changes on their own. That
may also be the reason why European Union members are expanding
their cooperation.

The second global event affecting ASEAN was the end of the
cold war. That has altered the security and stability of the
region and has opened new horizons in strategic developments. It
also has put pressure on existing mechanisms and institutions to
adjust and to change or risk the possibility of perishing.

Thus the big question is whether ASEAN can adjust and change
in the medium term and cope with those dramatic changes.

It will not be easy and it seems almost impossible for ASEAN
to change so fundamentally given the constraints that it is now
facing. Because of the financial crisis ASEAN members tend to be
inward looking. In addition, because of leadership changes in
some of the old members, personal relations are no longer so
critical for ASEAN cooperation as in the past. New members have
brought difficulties of all sorts because of a difference in
experiences, political systems and economic developments.

Basically the old principles on which ASEAN has functioned for
the last 30 years, namely a personal, non-legalistic and informal
system of cooperation between the states or their bureaucracies
are no longer adequate to cope with fundamental changes in ASEAN
and in each of its member countries.

Domestic problems such as the financial crisis, drug-
trafficking, environmental hazards, migration problems,
transnational crimes (e.g. piracy etc.) are also regional
problems. They call for regional and in some instances even
global cooperation. The new challenges no longer recognize the
divide between domestic and external aspects. Therefore, ASEAN as
a regional entity could be even more relevant if it could get its
act together and change in a fundamental way.

To achieve that would require ASEAN members to have a common
vision of the future. ASEAN heads agreed on the ASEAN Vision 2020
almost three years ago in Hanoi. However, ASEAN members also need
to develop new principles of cooperation.

Based on those principles, rules have to be established to
guide the organization and to make the cooperation viable. Those
rules have to take into consideration that the many problems
ASEAN is facing can not be solved individually.

Therefore, the principle of "non-intervention" is passe. As a
last resort, "intervention" could be done in a more acceptable
way. Examples where beneficial intervention might have worked in
past experiences in ASEAN are surveillance of macro-economic
indicators, the haze problem, and some policies on migration,
drug-trafficking and transnational crime.

For the implementation of the rules, institutions have to be
established. The heads should meet annually and empower this
meeting as the highest decision making body. A council of
ministers also has to be formed with the task of deciding on
programs and directives. The dominant role of the foreign
minister in ASEAN is no longer relevant. ASEAN problems have
become all encompassing and complex, and other ministers have to
get involved in working out answers.

The office of the Secretariat General has to be strengthened
and prepared for all the decisions that the council of ministers
and heads of ASEAN have to make. The workload of the existing
rotating Senior Officials Meetings has to be replaced by the
Secretariat with very few exceptions.

Last but not least the public, think-tanks, non-government
organizations and society at large who have a stake in the
cooperation should have their say and should be allowed in some
instances to take the initiatives towards ASEAN functional
cooperation.

Can these changes be implemented? Many wise men and visionary
groups have proposed modest institutional changes and failed. But
the future will be different, and the challenges are huge and
complex. If ASEAN fails to change, then ASEAN will become
irrelevant to its members and will wither away.

Those changes could be implemented over a medium term. In the
meantime two priorities have to be accepted. First is the total
engagement of the older members with the new members of ASEAN
that will also involve providing development assistance by the
old members to the new ones. This could be done in a triangular
way with financial assistance from international/financial
institutions or from Japan. Only then can the new members
participate fully in ASEAN's programs. This is critically
important if ASEAN would like to stay united.

Second, the principle of the "coalition of the willing" or the
decision of ASEAN minus X should be introduced. As such, some
members can develop a program without the participation of others
at the beginning. But it should be open to them whenever they are
ready to participate.

To be able to get those changes moving, the civil societies in
ASEAN have to participate fully in the effort and should pressure
their governments by arousing public opinion and initiate
programs in respective countries. At the functional and
professional levels there is ample cooperation going on among
ASEAN societies.

Hopefully the ASEAN People's Assembly (APA) to be held for the
first time in November in Batam, in conjunction with the Informal
Summit in Singapore, could push for these changes that are of
vital importance for ASEAN's survival. APA is initiated by ASEAN
and the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, an
ASEAN non-governmental organization. The Assembly is expected to
bring together over 300 NGO and civil society representatives as
well as governments.

The writer is chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Centre
for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta.