Southeast Asia in 2004: Living dangerously again

Southeast Asia in 2004: Living dangerously again

Thang D. Nguyen, Program Coordinator, United in Diversity
Forum, Jakarta

2004, the Year of the Monkey, will be an exciting, but
challenging one for Southeast Asia.

The New Year has already challenged the leadership in several
Southeast Asian countries with the bird flu outbreak. Thus far,
this epidemic has taken lives in Thailand and Vietnam and led to
mass culls of millions of chickens throughout Asia -- from
Cambodia to China, Laos, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, South Korea
and Taiwan -- and recently reached the US.

While scientists still try to confirm if this virus can be
transmitted human-to-human, it gives us all a chilling reminder
of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) that took many
lives and damaged Asia's economies severely last year and shows
that the region's leadership has failed the test of handling this
crisis.

The bird flu aside, leadership in several Southeast Asian
countries is expected to change this year. For Indonesia and the
Philippines, 2004 is an important year as their presidential
elections are only a few months away.

In the Philippines, one can only hope that, if re-elected,
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo will become a better president
than she has in her first term in office, especially in
revitalizing the economy and dealing with the Muslim rebels in
the south. As bright and strong a leader as she is, President
Arroyo needs to enhance and protect her credibility by making her
decisions in a manner consistent with what she says.

Even though the excitement about Indonesia's elections has not
picked up yet, as it did at the same time before the 1999
elections, it will be a most significant presidential election in
the country's history as the president will be selected by direct
votes. President Megawati Soekarnoputri -- despite her
shortcomings and lack of leadership -- is in fact the leading
candidate at the moment.

Whatever the outcomes of the presidential elections in
Indonesia and the Philippines, it is certain that the elected
presidents have an overwhelmingly challenging task of bringing
about stability, security, and prosperity in these troubled
democracies.

A quick look at its other heads of states shows that Southeast
Asia's leadership is young and, therefore, still on the learning
curve.

Malaysia's new prime minister, Abdullah Badawi -- or Pak Lah
as he is affectionately called -- took office last October as Dr.
Mahathir bin Mohamad retired after 22 years of leadership. Pak
Lah is navigating to find his own direction and build his own
leadership style, which is different from that of Dr. Mahathir
bin Mohamad.

Thus far, he appears to fair rather well. Malaysia will soon
have its general elections. It is reasonable to expect that Pak
Lah will make good use of his time in office to gain popularity
before deciding when the elections will take place.

Singapore's Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong is expected to hand
the baton over to Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong (the son
of Singapore's founding father, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew), by
2005. While the exact timing of this transition is unclear, it
is certain that Goh will do so when he feels is most appropriate
and that Lee, the junior, has been well groomed and is ready to
take charge ably as soon as he assumes his new post.

Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Sinawatra has been
exceptional. In his three years in office, Thaksin has been, and
continues to be, a leader of respect (if not fear). Described by
some as a transactional leader, Thaksin's policies, those with
heavy-handed government intervention into not only in the economy
and politics, but also other aspects of the Thai society, have
made a turn-around for Thailand -- one of the most prominent
victims of the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998 and from which
it spread to neighbor economies.

Nevertheless, Thailand's cover up of and belated response to
the bird flu will both hurt the country's chicken poultry exports
and Thaksin's rising reputation.

In addition to being young, it is also fair to say that ASEAN
leaders, with a few exceptions, are for the most part not visible
or heard enough in international arenas and not strong or
proactive enough in their region. This is certainly true in the
case of Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam. It is
reasonable to expect the leadership in these countries to remain
the same in 2004.

ASEAN's ultimate goal is to integrate its ten member
economies. While this is a noble cause that ASEAN has every
reason to pursue, it presents the grouping with a number of
formidable challenges.

For one thing, there is a lack of the much-needed political
will among member countries to reduce both tariff and non-tariff
barriers within AFTA (ASEAN Free Trade Agreement). This lack of
commitment from member countries has made trade more expensive
and business more costly to do in and with them. The consequence
is evident in that intra-ASEAN trade has fallen by 19 per cent
since 1994, when the free trade area was established.

The second challenge is the grouping's consensus-oriented
governing style. Founded on a non-interference principle, ASEAN
as a grouping of diverse political regimes, cultures, and
ideologies needs to move beyond its consensus-seeking tradition
to a majority-voting style. Unpopular as it is, a majority-
voting style would enable ASEAN to move forward with its market
integration and trade liberalization processes.

The third challenge is the grouping's lack of institutions to
further its economic integration. The grouping's Jakarta-based
Secretariat is not suitable, nor is it capable, to monitor and
implement this process.

If anything, AFTA is operated by ministers of trade and
industry from the ten member countries who hold long meetings and
hammer out wordy documents that are hardly implemented. It is
time to create an ASEAN Trade Organization (ATO) to handle its
trade matters and other perfunctory institutions to monitor and
implement its economic integration.

Leaders like Lee Kuan Yew, Mahathir bin Mohamad, and Soeharto
have developed ASEAN and worked hard to earn it a place and
respect in the international community. The grouping's
leadership torch is now in the hands of its current leaders, who
should make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on
to their successors.

These are his personal views.