Challenges of new strategic partnership for Asia-Africa

Anak Agung Banyu Perwita, Bandung

The values rooted in the Bandung Ten Principles (Dasa Sila Bandung) as the strategic output of the Asia-Africa Conference in 1955 continues to have a crucial and contextual meaning in regional and global interactions of today. Cooperation between Asian-African countries against colonialism remains relevant -- even more so -- to fight today's common "enemies" of economic, political and social-cultural colonialism.

In the context of changing international relations, Asian- African states must now deal with three major challenges, in the fields of economic development, global peace and security -- especially terrorism, and global political restructuring.

In the field of economic development, for instance, the latest study conducted by the World Bank has shown that Asia has and will become one of Africa's biggest trading partners. Africa's trade value to Asia alone makes up about 16 percent annually (1999-2001) of Africa's US$130 billion annual exports.

The World Bank report also concluded that Asia could be a strategic market diversification target. Assuming that average economic growth of Asian countries is 5 percent annually, then the consumption level of these Asian nations of various African commodities will also increase. Therefore, the possibilities for enhancing trade interactions between these two continents will also increase in the future.

In order to bolster trade and economic interaction among Asian-African countries, there are at least two shared agendas that need to be addressed.

First, Asian-African countries should strengthen their information networks regarding trade and investment in an effort to more comprehensively understand the market dimensions of the two continents.

Second, the institutional arrangements between the two continents should also be strengthened as a means to reinforce strategic dialog between Asian-African nations and to raise new awareness regarding business opportunities among Asian-African business people.

However, high-cost economies, limited infrastructure, and inadequate numbers of well-trained people as well as the "complex" legal systems of many developing countries, remains a predicament in increasing the trade and investment volume between the nations of these continents.

In this context, the effort to increase South-South cooperation framework is not just an option, but rather an imperative for Asian-African countries in order to increase their welfare in the midst of growing competition among nation-states. This South-South cooperation should become the main driving force of development solidarity for Asia and Africa in the globalization era.

The demand for reform of the UN Security Council, especially coming from nations of the Non-Aligned Movement, will depend heavily on the political will of developing countries to reach a consensus to establish a common position. In many cases, NAM has proven to be "a house divided" in dealing with shared issues in the realm of multilateralism, including the UN.

Looking at several developments above, the opportunities for crafting a new strategic partnership for Asia-Africa remains wide open. However, the increasing degree and intensity of interaction doesn't just depend on traditional government-to-government relations. The phenomenon of globalization with its multidimensional nature should be able to function as driving force for the creation of a more systematic and patterned intersociety interactions (people to people relations) between Asia and Africa.

So far, the interactions between the societies of Asia and Africa have been relatively limited.

In many cases, a weak state/government, poverty as well as the mounting cultures of violence, have served as breeding grounds for terrorism and other trans-national crimes. Therefore, individual groups and societies in these two continents can play a crucial role in the new strategic partnership for Asia-Africa, including in the war against terrorism in Asia and Africa.

This Asian-African interaction can also be categorized as a "bilateral interregional relationship", hence the necessity to increase and enlarge the number of dialogs among groups in various formal as well as informal meetings that should also come from various groups of society in Asian-African nations themselves.

In other words, societal groups in Asia and Africa as well as various non-governmental organizations in their respective societies, have to play their part as "agenda initiators" and even as "agenda controllers" in the effort to increase the interaction amongst them while at the same time to complement the formal interactions taking place at governmental/state levels.

This is in line with the statement by South African Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Aziz Pahad, who said that the foundation of the new partnership for Asia and Africa comprises three complementary levels: Governmental, sub-regional organizational groups, and societies at large. In that form, this kind of cooperation will lead to a strengthening of the "regionalism through interregionalism" in the two continents.

From the discussion above, we can see that a new strategic partnership for Asia and Africa has many challenges and opportunities. Globalization has provided alternative options in developing the degree and intensity of Asia-Africa relationships. However, to optimize these new strategic options, a high level of political commitment is still required.

The failure of Asian-African countries to unite their economic, social and political interests will simply turn the cooperation forums established so far into new "talk-shops" in contemporary interregional relations.

The writer is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of International Relations, Parahyangan Catholic University, Bandung.