Post-Mahathir, ASEAN faces another crunch

Pana Janviroj, The Nation, Asia News Network, Bangkok

This week's ASEAN Summit in Bali will bid farewell to Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who is due to retire shortly. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has been more than a sentimental journey for the Malaysian leader.

Whatever efforts Malaysia has made to strengthen ASEAN or whatever benefits it has reaped from being an influential founding member, the grand vision which Mahathir painted for the regional grouping unfortunately was never realized.

That grand vision was to build on ASEAN and create the East Asia Economic Caucus (EAEC) in the 1980s. It was to be a distinctively Asian-flavored economic grouping, that is to say without the Americans and the Australians. But Thailand was among those which did not go for it. Eventually the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum emerged as alternative models.

But that is not to say that Mahathir's grand vision is all but forgotten. The distinctive Asian values at least caught the imagination of new and younger leaders such as Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. The later has always shown his admiration for the outgoing Malaysian prime minister. Their eye- to-eye meetings have become a talking point in diplomatic circles.

Thaksin's own initiatives, the Asia Cooperation Dialog and the Asia Bonds, designed as different types of vehicle for Asian nations to work together and share the benefits, most certainly were influenced by Mahathir's thinking on Asia.

And in Bali it is Thaksin, the rising star of Asian leaders and one who perhaps is Mahathir's protege in mind and spirit, who should pay greatest tribute to the retiring Malaysian leader.

Yet the challenges facing Thaksin in uniting ASEAN and moving it forward are far from easy. If Mahathir's most recent legacy on ASEAN was his strong support for the expansion of the regional grouping to admit Burma, Cambodia and Laos as members, the ASEAN era with Thaksin will be one of trying to hold the members and their interests together.

At the Bali summit next week, the tradition of reaching consensus among the 10 ASEAN member countries, which has been a source of strength as well as weakness to the group, will give way to an even greater two-track membership development at a time of great change in world geopolitics.

For instance Singaporean Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong's proposed ASEAN Economic Community is expected to be adopted by member countries ready to do so such as Thailand and Malaysia. The "ASEAN minus X" will make ASEAN more fragmented than before but is seen as a possible savior in face of the dwindling economic attractiveness of this region, particularly in terms of foreign investment, which is going largely to China.

And more questions than answers have emerged on how different members of ASEAN should approach the new world order. Will Thailand, for example, broach a free-trade agreement with the U.S. with the intention of merging it eventually with ASEAN's economic interests?

Can Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines convince the United States that the best way to engage China is to strengthen ASEAN? Or will the ASEAN members be able to convince China that the best way it can become a force to be reckoned with is to make ASEAN strong? And what about Malaysia's controversial opt-out clause on the automobile trade under AFTA, which has hurt ASEAN's reputation?

These pending united or disunited strategies have emerged as a challenge in themselves. But it all foretells one thing: One single ASEAN member nation can undermine the clout of the entire group, and no single ASEAN nation can go it alone or have the bargaining power that the entire group can have.

Mahathir is leaving at a time when a new pragmatism in world politics has given way to bilateralism. The Thaksin era will increasingly be one in which national interests easily overshadow ASEAN interests due to the immediate seductiveness of bilateral economic deals and the ease with which patience can run out on forging consensus among the group's members.

But the economics of togetherness continue to be the most beneficial and obvious. And this week's announcement of the detailed terms of Hong Kong's new trade pact with China is a case in point. The deal will give Hong Kong companies preferential access to 18 types of Chinese consumer in services including banking, insurance, movies, advertising, construction and shipping.

Policy-makers from Beijing and Hong Kong have given importance to complementarity and the needs of cost-conscious service firms. The same intensity cannot be said of the way ASEAN thinks or does things. Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore continue to try and outdo one another without giving due attention to synergy and scale.

ASEAN was less than bold even when the opportunity presented itself with the 1997 crisis. Can the post-Mahathir era be different? There are some positive signs there, but only truly visionary leaders can convince others to take that one giant leap.