Southeast Asian countries must be more proactive, scholar urges

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Southeast Asian countries should focus on "strategic engagement" with regional neighbors and Europe, rather than traditional "non-interference", a leading European scholar said on Wednesday.

Corrado Letta, an Italian who chairs the strategic thinking team for the upcoming fourth Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Copenhagen in October, said European investors had been abandoning Southeast Asia in recent years because of the lack of progress in relations between the two regions.

"Investors will welcome the transition to a more strategic engagement principle," Letta told a discussion at the Asian launch of his scholarly book ASEM's Future.

Letta presented a paper with the thought-provoking title Can Asians Think? Can Europeans Listen? at the discussion, which was jointly sponsored by the ASEAN Foundation and the Italian Embassy.

His book is a two-volume work charting how the European Union and Asia, particularly the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), can strengthen cooperation.

He did not elaborate on his "strategic engagement" concept, but stressed that policies in any country should be based on "strategic thinking" and "strategic listening", rather than emotional reactions to events.

The principle should be applied to the practice of good governance -- including human rights and democracy -- as this would be noted by investors, he said.

A departure from the non-interference principle could also revive ASEAN, he said, noting the regional grouping has been virtually inactive since the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

Indonesia's former foreign minister Ali Alatas did not dispute Letta's call for more strategic engagement, saying ASEAN was no longer so dogmatic about non-interference.

But Alatas told the discussion it was impossible to expect ASEAN countries to drop non-interference altogether, because it had helped promote harmony in the region.

Issues in one country that affected other countries in the region had been widely and openly discussed, he said, citing the problems of haze from forest fires originating from Indonesia, piracy and international human smuggling as examples where ASEAN waived the non-interference principle.

Alatas admitted, however, that "we could have done much more."

On the slowing down in relations between Europe and Asia, Alatas pointed to faults on both sides, saying each had been preoccupied with problems in its own backyard.

ASEAN countries have had to deal with a major financial crisis and the enlargement of the group to 10 members, Alatas said. He added Indonesia, which had previously provided leadership for the group, had virtually turned inward in the face of its domestic crisis.

But he said the European Union has also faced problems, including "hangovers" from the Kosovo war and the Balkan conflict and the addition of new member states. Also, big EU corporations had been consolidating within Europe instead of spreading their wings, Alatas said.

Under these circumstances, Asia-European relations could not be expected to grow as fast as many would like, he said.

"But it doesn't mean that we should stop trying."