Southeast Asian countries must be more proactive, scholar urges
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."