The prospects and challenges

The prospects and challenges
of ASEAN and East Asia groupings

Kavi Chgongkittavorn
Asia News Network
Bangkok

The future of East Asia, or Asia for that matter, will be in
the hands of leaders from 10+3+1+2, represented by ASEAN, China-
Japan-Korea, India and Australia and New Zealand, when they meet
on Dec. 14 in Kuala Lumpur. Although the inaugural meeting will
be very symbolic with fanfare, the future ramifications are still
unfathomable.

Obviously with Malaysia as host of the East Asian Summit
(EAS), ASEAN is moving forward to strengthen its identity,
despite uncertainties and divergences among member countries on
the future course of EAS.

For the time being, the priority is being placed on the
ongoing ASEAN plus three (APT) process. Some ASEAN members have
expressed concern that without further consolidation of their 10-
year old cooperation, the newly emerged EAS might be overwhelmed
by the APT process. To allay this fear, ASEAN and China, Japan
and Korea will sign a separate declaration among themselves
stressing the imperatives of their cooperation and community
building.

The grouping's staunch desire to construct the future rule-
based community within East Asia among the APT has already caused
uneasiness with India, Australia and New Zealand. While they are
appreciative of being part of the EAS, they have not yet come to
terms with why they are not part of the emerging East Asian
community. When this concept was introduced in the early 1990s,
it was quickly turned down because it was viewed as anti-American
grouping during the first year of President Bill Clinton
administration.

Soon, the international community will find out if the future
of East Asia will stretch from Kashmir, India to Southland, New
Zealand or simply limited to the APT. After almost two years of
discussion, founding members of EAS have not yet agreed if their
summit will serve as a springboard for the formation of an East
Asian Community (EAC). As the summit approaches, they have not
yet agreed on the nitty-gritty of the EAS modality.

When an East Asian Community three was proposed years ago by
South Korea and subsequently Japan, it envisaged a much bigger
community-building process that would link the region with the
broader Asia Pacific: the participation of Australia and New
Zealand as well as India would complement this idea. But the idea
of East Asian cooperation that ASEAN worked on was based on the
APT and its enlargement.

In the beginning, hopes were high that ASEAN would be more
accommodating in allowing non-ASEAN EAS founders to do more and
in the process gradually transform the EAS into a regionwide
forum for community building. However, that was a wishful
thinking.

At the Kuala Lumpur summit, the APT leaders will again
reiterate that the much-heralded EAS should be just a strategic
dialog forum for leaders to discuss important issues of common
interest. It will be a forum with a loose structure and no fixed
agenda. In that sense, the EAS will have nothing to do directly
with community building in East Asia.

Obviously, ASEAN views community building in East as an APT
process with the ASEAN Community and ASEAN's bilateral dialog
partners with China, Japan and Korea as well as bilateral
cooperation among the three as building blocks.

They will not speak of establishing a secretariat, as Malaysia
suggested in the beginning. ASEAN will lead and chair all future
meetings, very much to the chagrin of Japan, which prefers other
non-ASEAN countries to co-chair meetings. In a nutshell, ASEAN
will be calling the shots, as it always has done as in the ASEAN
Regional Forum.

ASEAN leaders see the EAS as an Asian-type G-8 meeting, which
will take up specific themes or issues, including invitations of
specific guests. For example, in the past year China and India
were invited to join in G-8 discussions.

The Declaration on the ASEAN Plus Three Summit that will be
signed by their leaders will ensure that the process that began
in 1992 continues. Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia have been
demanding that the APT be the main driving force and not be
diluted in any way by the new forum.

A series of summit meetings that also include Russia will take
place along with the announcement of the establishment of an
eminent persons group to prepare the drafting of an ASEAN
Charter. The EPG group will study future scenarios for ASEAN
beyond the current action plan for 2020. Whatever the group
agrees to will be reflected in the charter.

Prominent ASEAN personalities such as former Filipino
president Fidel Ramos, former Malaysian deputy prime minister
Musa Hitam, former Singaporean foreign minister S Jayakumar,
former Indonesian foreign minister Ali Alatas and former Thai
foreign minister Kasem Samosornkasemri have already agreed to
join the group. They expect to finish the draft charter within a
year. To help them, the Jakarta-based ASEAN Secretariat has a
finished draft that encompasses important elements found in all
ASEAN documents and action plans.

In recent years ASEAN states have realized that they have to
work closer together to tackle common problems, especially
serious cross-border issues such as terrorism, haze and
pollution, people trafficking and drug smuggling, and contagious
diseases such as bird flu and SARS. The law-binding charter will
facilitate cooperation on such issues. For instance, if need be,
in the case of antiterrorism cooperation, there could be a speedy
extradition of persons involved in terrorist acts.

Through increased cooperation, some of the key ASEAN members,
such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore, hope
that the member countries will talk less about the non-
interference principle and opt for practical approaches. The
discreet but sustained pressure from the ASEAN MPs Caucus on
Burma was cited as a good example.

As host of the EAS, Malaysia wants to leave a legacy that it
has made ASEAN more engaging with the rest of the world and that
EAS should be a nonexclusive entity. Not long ago Prime Minister
Abdullah Badawi said he wished to see ASEAN be more open and down
to earth. He is now working to make sure that this happens.

At the summit, the Malaysia leader will lead a scheduled 15-
minute meeting between the representatives from ASEAN civil-
society organizations and his ASEAN colleagues. It will be the
first such major encounter, underscoring the host's desire to
make ASEAN less elitist.

There are at least 50 non-governmental organizations
registered as ASEAN non-governmental organizations. But only a
few, such as ASEAN-ISIS and the ASEAN University Network, are
recognized and enjoy regular contact with ASEAN senior officials.