Future of ASEAN and East Asia

Future of ASEAN and East Asia

Kavi Chongkittavorn, Asia News Network, Bangkok

Future of East Asia, or for that matter, Asia, would be in the
hands of leaders from 10+3+1+2, represented by ASEAN,
China-Japan-Korea, India and Australia and New Zealand, when they
meet on Dec. 14 in Kuala Lumpur. Although the inaugural meeting
would be very symbolic with fanfares, the future ramification is
still unfathomable.

Obviously with Malaysia as host of the East Asian Summit,
ASEAN is moving forward to strengthen its identity, despite
uncertainties and divergences among member countries on the
future course of EAS.

For the time being, the priority is now being placed on the
ongoing ASEAN plus three (APT) process. Some ASEAN members have
expressed concern that without further consolidation of their 10-
year old cooperation, the newly emerged EAS might be overwhelmed
by the APT process. To disarray this fear, ASEAN and China, Japan
and Korea will sign a separate declaration among themselves
stressing the imperatives of their cooperation and community
building.

The grouping's staunch desire to construct the future rule-
based community within East Asia among the APT has already caused
uneasiness with India, Australia and New Zealand. While they are
appreciative of being part of the EAS, they have not yet come to
terms as to why they are not part of the emerging East Asian
community. When this concept was introduced in early 1990s, it
was quickly turned down because it was viewed as anti-American
grouping during the first year of President Bill Clinton
Administration.

Soon, the international community will find out if the future
of East Asia will stretch from Kashmir, India to Southland, New
Zealand or simply limited to the APT. After almost two-year of
discussion, founding members of EAS have not yet agreed if their
summit will serve as a springboard for the formation of an East
Asian Community (EAC). As the summit approaches, they have not
yet agreed on the nitty-gritty of the EAS modality.

When an East Asian Community three was proposed years ago by
South Korea and subsequently Japan, it envisaged a much bigger
community-building process that would link the region with the
broader Asia-Pacific: The participation of Australia and New
Zealand as well as India would complement this idea. But the idea
of East Asian cooperation that ASEAN worked on was based on the
APT and its enlargement.

In the beginning, hopes were high that ASEAN would be more
accommodating in allowing non-ASEAN EAS founders to do more and
in the process gradually transform the EAS into a region-wide
forum for community-building. However, that was a wishful
thinking.

At the Kuala Lumpur summit, the APT leaders will again
reiterate that the much-heralded EAS should be just a strategic
dialogue forum for leaders to discuss important issues of common
interest. It will be a forum with a loose structure and no fixed
agenda. In that sense, the EAS will have nothing to do directly
with community-building in East Asia.

Obviously, ASEAN views the community-building in East as an
APT process with the ASEAN Community and ASEAN's bilateral
dialogue partners with China, Japan and Korea as well as
bilateral cooperation among the three as building blocks.

They will not speak of establishing a secretariat, as Malaysia
has suggested in the beginning. ASEAN will lead and chair all
future meetings, very much to the chagrin of Japan, which prefers
other non-ASEAN countries to co-chair meetings. In a nutshell,
ASEAN will be calling the shots, as it always has done as in the
ASEAN Regional Forum.

ASEAN leaders see the EAS as an Asian-type G-8 meeting, which
will take up specific themes or issues, including invitations of
specific guests. For example in the past year China and India
were invited to join in G-8 discussions.

The Declaration on the ASEAN Plus Three Summit that will be
signed by their leaders will ensure that the process that began
in 1992 continues. Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia have been
demanding that the APT be the main driving force and not be
diluted in any way by the new forum.

A series of summit meeting that also including Russia will
take place along with the announcement of establishment of an
eminent persons group to prepare the drafting of an ASEAN
Charter. The EPG group will study future scenarios for ASEAN
beyond the current action plan for 2020. Whatever the group
agrees to will be reflected in the charter.

Prominent ASEAN personalities such as former Filipino
President Fidel Ramos, former Malaysian deputy prime minister
Musa Hitam, former Singaporean foreign minister S Jayakumar,
former Indonesian foreign minister Ali Alatas and former Thai
foreign minister Kasem Samosornkasemri have already agreed to
join the group. They expect to finish the draft charter within a
year. To help them, the Jakarta-based ASEAN Secretariat has a
finished draft which
encompasses important elements found in all ASEAN documents and
action plans.

In recent years ASEAN states have realized that they have to
work closer together to tackle common problems, especially
serious cross-border issues such as terrorism, haze and
pollutions, people-trafficking and drug-smuggling, and contagious
diseases such as bird flu and Sars. The law-binding charter will
facilitate cooperation on such issues. For instance, if need be,
in the case of anti-terrorism cooperation, there could be a
speedy extradition of persons involved in terrorist acts.

Through increased cooperation, some of the key ASEAN members,
such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore, hope
that the member countries will talk less about the non-
interference principle and opt for practical approaches. The
discreet but sustained pressure from the ASEAN MPs Caucus on
Burma was cited as a good example.

As host of the EAS, Malaysia wants to leave a legacy that it
has made ASEAN more engaging with the rest of the world and that
EAS should be a non-exclusive entity. Not long ago Prime Minister
Abdullah Badawi said he wished to see ASEAN be more open and down
to earth. He is now working to make sure that this happens.

At the summit, Malaysia leader will lead a scheduled a 15-
minute meeting between the representatives from ASEAN civil-
society organizations and his ASEAN colleagues. It will be the
first such major encounter, underscoring the host's desire to
make ASEAN less elitist.

There are at least 50 non-government organizations registered
as ASEAN nongovernmental organizations. But only a few, such as
ASEAN-ISIS and the ASEAN University Network, are recognized and
enjoy regular contacts with ASEAN senior officials.