Indonesia and ASEAN must move on together

Indonesia and ASEAN must move on together

Philips J Vermonte
CSIS

In the past three decades, ASEAN has been the corner stone of
Indonesia's foreign policy. But, things have changed rapidly,
triggered by the economic crisis and its severe consequences
starting from 1997. To a large extent, Indonesia has lost its
credibility within ASEAN, shifting from "a country that could
assert the leadership role" into a country that is widely seen as
"source of the problems" in the region. The shift is partly
caused by the political change started in 1998, following the
resignation of Soeharto from the presidency. Since then, the
Indonesian authoritarian system has been, to some extent, altered
with a more democratic one. New political parties and interest
groups have emerged. In addition, print and electronic media are
now able to publish people's opinions, apart from the state's
view.

After the financial crisis hit the region, several members of
ASEAN have also experienced profound political change. In the
Philippines, a country that is considered to be having the
strongest people-power movement in the region, the demand for a
more transparent government is apparently high. The
democratization process is also underway in Thailand. The new
Constitution enacted in 1997 introduces significant political
reform in that country. In Malaysia, the opposition movement has
also become more discernible. Suffice it to say, some ASEAN
members are gradually becoming more open and democratic than
others.

Meanwhile, ASEAN now has a larger agenda as a consequence of
its decision to incorporate all ten countries in the region. The
economic gap between the old and new members, the competing
interests amongst the members, the emergence of non-traditional
security issues and the desire to create "One Southeast Asia"
through economic and political integration must all be dealt with
at once.

It must be noted that Indonesia has been known as the
strongest proponent of the core ASEAN principle, the non-
interference principle. It dates back to the early days of the
Soeharto administration in 1967. After putting an end to
Sukarno's Confrontation policy towards Malaysia, Soeharto's New
Order government actively took part in initial attempts to
establish ASEAN. The reason for this, as Michael Leifer (1999)
puts it, was that Soeharto needed ASEAN to rebuild Indonesia's
reputation. Indonesia under Sukarno was widely known as an anti-
Western country.

For Indonesia at that time there was a need to achieve
regional stability for economic development as well as domestic
political stability. It was not surprising that the Bangkok
Declaration in 1967, which serves as a fundamental treaty for
ASEAN, emphasizes these two political and economic
considerations. In the first ASEAN summit in 1976, it was
Soeharto who made it clear that "each member resolves to
eliminate threats posed by subversion to its stability, thus
strengthening national and ASEAN resilience." Since then, the
concepts underpinning ASEAN's effort to attain its goal are
regional resilience together with economic growth, which was very
much the same as Soeharto's domestic political jargon. The point
that needs to be highlighted here is that Indonesia played a very
significant role in shaping ASEAN's early political agenda.

We could draw similarities between the period when Indonesia
decided to support the establishment of ASEAN and now.
Indonesia's regional reputation has been seriously damaged. Among
the famous four problems that have been faced by ASEAN since
1997, three originate or at least take place in Indonesia: The
economic crisis, the environmental disaster of the haze and the
humanitarian emergency of East Timor. The issue of illegal
workers has also become a contentious diplomatic thorn between
Indonesia and Malaysia, which reached its peak with the expulsion
of illegal Indonesian workers from Malaysia in August this year.
In addition, before the Bali bombings a few months ago, Indonesia
received heavy criticism from the neighboring countries for we
were seen as doing very little in the fight against terrorism.

At this point, Indonesia could actually play an important role
in shaping ASEAN's determination again. Indonesia has an
opportunity to do so as we will host the ASEAN Summit in 2003.

There are several broad issues that can be advocated by
Indonesia.

First, it must be acknowledged that ASEAN is not unified over
some important issues, managing its relations with external
powers for instance. Unlike in the past when ASEAN was always
seen as an entity and treated as equal, ASEAN's external partners
now enjoy better leverage as ASEAN's new members have their own
agenda for harvesting development aid from the partners. These
two challenges, external powers' interference and growing
internal differences, must be given particular attention.
Indonesia can play a role in unifying the competing interests of
ASEAN member countries.

Second, for ASEAN to move more progressively, the consensus
principle needs to be examined. Third, ASEAN must also address
the issue of institutional building. More than just trying to
reach a consensus on one particular issue, ASEAN must strengthen
its institution so that they can be utilized for making a more
rational decision. It can be achieved, for example, by enhancing
the role of the ASEAN Secretariat. Fourth, ASEAN needs to
incorporate participation of non-state actors from ASEAN member
countries. ASEAN must find a way to give more room to the people
of ASEAN to participate in the regional cooperation process. By
doing so, we will not only nurture the idea of an "ASEAN-ness",
but also we protect our own democratization process by creating a
regional environment conducive for democracy.