One Asia
The walls of division which separate the people's of South, Southeast and East Asia came down earlier this week for a brief moment as leaders of 14 Asian countries gathered in Vientiane as equals and colleagues.
The annual summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on Monday and Tuesday included meetings with leaders from China, Japan, South Korea and India.
The proceedings were full of fanfare and the customary officialdom, laced with fancy rhetoric. Beyond the decorum, the significance of these 13 men and one woman gathering in the same room with a seemingly genuine desire to pursue mutual cooperation should not be understated. They represent some two billion people of Asia whose lives are separated by natural boundaries, language, ideology and materialistic interests.
Ten years ago such a gathering would have been bogged in suspicion and diplomatic entanglement. A decade before that, a meeting of such magnitude could only have been part of pact to end war or negotiations for peace.
Many in Asia lived through the troubled times of uncertainty. It was not so long ago that the region was in turmoil: two giant armies -- India and China -- were at odds, the Korean Peninsula was in open conflict, Indonesia and the Philippines were in confrontation with Malaysia-Singapore, and Indochina was ravaged by war.
Lingering suspicions persist, and outstanding disputes remain unresolved. But the presence of these leaders in a single venue, smiling and embracing one another, is a sign of the positive times the region is experiencing.
If there is dispute among nations it is better for these leaders to thrash it out across the negotiating table than have their people raise arms against one another.
No small thanks should be directed toward the work of ASEAN. The regional grouping has effectively made open conflict between the 10 Southeast Asian states increasingly obsolete. Its work in engaging powerful east Asian neighbors -- China, Japan and South Korea -- is also beginning to bear fruit.
It is the nations' leaders that declare war and make peace. And in that respect there is confidence that ASEAN's continued engagement with Asian giants will yield similar peaceful results.
The diversity between the nations will remain. But, as President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said upon his arrival in the Laotian capital last week, the diversity of the peoples of Asia should be a source of strength, not division.
We are thus hopeful that as our leaders work out the modalities for peaceful coexistence toward an end to inter-state conflict, they will also begin respecting the political and economic rights of their peoples, irrespective of nationalities. Whether we are Thai or Filipino, Indonesian or Japanese, each have innate values common to any human being. Being fellow Asians only helps to narrow any divergence of perceptions.
If these values and rights are not respected, or even suppressed, the common peace sought by leaders will never be sincerely realized, regardless of the formal arrangements reached by officials. Peace begins at home.
A state of amity between nations may exist. Nevertheless without domestic stability -- brought about by political and economic development -- in all countries the region can only sense anxious peace devoid of peace of mind.