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.