Big questions for ARF after "Mumble in the Jungle" in Laos

Big questions for ARF after "Mumble in the Jungle" in Laos

Ed Cropley, Reuters, Bangkok

Flies on the wall at last week's ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in
Laos must have thought they had seen it all before.

As usual, the assembled foreign ministers from Southeast Asia
and beyond embarrassed themselves with less-than-side-splitting
post-dinner skits, an annual ritual at the meeting.

Then, there was the usual dust-up over Myanmar's military
junta and its awkward membership of the 10-strong Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

And finally, there was the obligatory end-of-meeting
communique announcing that everybody agreed that international
relations were good things, and that terrorism and nuclear bombs,
especially on the Korean peninsula, were bad.

But no-shows at this year's jamboree by U.S. Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice and her Chinese, Japanese and Indian
counterparts sharpened that other grand old ARF tradition -- the
post-match debate about the relevance of the whole thing.

For Rice, whose predecessor Colin Powell made it his duty to
attend no matter how excruciating the after-dinner entertainment,
it appears to be more a question of irrelevance.

Diplomats concede that the security-focused forum, which for
the last 12 years has given the relative minnows of Southeast
Asia the chance to rub shoulders with the big boys, has always
been most valuable as a networking opportunity.

But as the group swells -- Bangladesh's attendance next year
will push its numbers to 26 -- analysts say there is a risk
networking will become its only, not just main, use.

"The result is that important issues, which are necessarily
contentious, are ignored and official ARF pronouncements are no
more than milquetoast compromise statements," wrote Dana Dillon
of the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think-tank.

"Convenience is a good reason to attend ARF when other venues
are not available, but that is hardly an endorsement of ARF
itself," Dillon said.

"The fact that all other major powers dropped out when Rice
did demonstrates that they saw ARF the same way."

Since it was formalized in 1994, giving a name to the annual
meetings between ASEAN foreign ministers and their Asia-Pacific
counterparts, ARF has relied on its status as the region's only
security forum to deflect worries about its lack of action.

As one of the few international clubs of which North Korea is
a member, it also served as a vital communication channel between
top officials from Pyongyang and Washington.

But the restart of six-way talks in Beijing last week to
defuse the North Korean nuclear crisis stole ARF's thunder on
that front, and Rice's absence scuppered the usual "will they-
won't they" excitement over a U.S.-North Korean handshake.

The inauguration of the East Asian Summit in Malaysia in
December, an ASEAN spin-off interpreted as a symbol of China's
growing diplomatic stranglehold over Southeast Asia, could be a
major rival to the ARF, analysts say.

"Everyone is holding their breath and wondering whether the
new forum is going to be the one carrying the load from now on,"
said Ross Babbage of Canberra-based consultancy Strategy
International.

"If you go back over the last ARF meetings, when has there
been one which has produced important consequences?" he said.

While western commentators are quick to look for concrete
results -- and dismiss the Laos forum as a "Mumble in the Jungle"
for its lack of them -- Asian analysts say the goal of meetings
such as the ARF is the diplomacy itself, rather than the outcome.

"Asian actors have a different view on these security
meetings. They see it as 'process regionalism' rather than
'product regionalism' -- an evolution, not necessarily a set of
determining finalities," said K.S. Nathan of Singapore's
Institute of South East Asian Studies.

Others, such as Ralf Emmers of Singapore's Institute of
Defense and Strategic Studies, termed it "rather a successful
meeting" despite the slew of no-shows.

"Many expected this year to be a non-event, but it seems that
a few interesting and relevant measures and decisions came out,"
Emmers said, pointing to joint acceptance of the need to improve
maritime security in a region vital to world trade.

Tiny Laos walked tall as host of the event, but its ASEAN
peers -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar,
Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines -- were more
vocal in their disappointment at all the absences.

How quickly that disappointment turns into real concern
remains to be seen.