New era for ASEAN

New era for ASEAN

Encouraging, more feasible and impressive. Those are the words
that we used in our two successive editorials commenting on the
results achieved by the 10 ASEAN leaders in their summit meetings
with their dialog partners that concluded on Wednesday.

And why not? ASEAN leaders, at their own summit on Tuesday,
endorsed a concept of an integrated ASEAN Economic Community,
aiming to achieve a single market by 2020, with a free flow of
goods, services and investment in a region of more than half a
billion people. This was quite apart from the agreement reached
by the regional grouping and two of its giant, nuclear-armed
neighbors, China and India, covering free trade and security.

With almost three billion people in the east Asian region tied
under a security umbrella and the same rules of good conduct, it
will certainly help develop not only peace and stability but also
prosperity in the region, said Indonesian foreign minister Hassan
Wirajuda at his media briefing.

Without doubt, it is a new era for ASEAN.

However, things are usually easier said than done. While some
ASEAN members have turned their plans into action, others have
not even liberalized their political systems, let alone moved
toward a market economy, a reflection of the fact that ASEAN
members range from monarchies to fledgling democracies and a
military dictatorship. Besides, it has always been the ASEAN
consensus, since its establishment in 1967, that all member
countries should adopt the principles of noninterference in each
other's domestic affairs regardless of size, culture or political
system.

To achieve the golden goals mapped out in the summit, ASEAN,
putting the differences of each member country aside, cannot help
but work harder in molding its identity as a community that can
withstand stiff challenges, be they political or economic in
nature, and keep stability in the region on track.

Maintaining the ASEAN way and identity, more often than not,
may involve positive "interference," often referred to as
"constructive engagement," from one member country to another and
this should by no means decrease the intensity of cooperation
between member countries.

This was well demonstrated by Malaysia and Singapore when they
offered to help contain the haze problem originating from forest
fires on Indonesia's islands of Kalimantan and Sumatra.

At present, with an increasing number of transnational crimes
like drug and human trafficking and piracy taking place in the
region and worsened by the prevalence of terrorist attacks,
ASEAN, whose role has won growing recognition from the
international community, will have to be even more cohesive
internally so as to ensure the security and safety of its 500-
million population.

Member countries, without undermining their own national
interest, should not erode the ASEAN identity and unity while
conducting bilateral talks with dialog partners -- currently
South Korea, China, Japan and India -- because, in the end, it is
the ASEAN interest that counts the most.

United, ASEAN is a strong community that can have a say in
maintaining world peace and prosperity; divided, it is but a
collection of relatively small economies that still rely on
Western, industrialized countries.