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.