U.S. war on terror haunts ASEAN meeting in Thailand
U.S. war on terror haunts ASEAN meeting in Thailand
Dan Eaton, Reuters, Bangkok
Terrorism will overshadow talks between Southeast Asian foreign ministers in Thailand this week, with the region fearful and divided over Washington's declaration of an "axis of evil" that has its roots firmly planted in Asia.
The informal retreat with no official agenda on the southern resort island of Phuket comes as U.S. President George W. Bush conducts a whistlestop tour of China, South Korea and Japan. The tour, which was postponed by the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, is now likely to be dominated by them, pushing other issues on to the backburner.
The 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) ministers gather after Bush's State of the Union address, in which he identified North Korea, Iran and Iraq, as an "axis of evil" -- indicating they may be the next under America's hammer in its battle against global terror networks.
Southeast Asian nations have remained largely silent on Bush's speech, despite what many of them see as a potential to upset stability in a region which is home to some of the world's biggest and most technologically advanced militaries in China and Japan, and, in Indonesia, its largest Muslim population.
"The United States is the dominant economy that affects the recovery of the region...If you don't like the way the U.S. is going, now is the time to bide your time," said Carl Thayer, professor of politics at the Australian Defense Force Academy.
The Phuket meeting will be the first by the regional bloc's top ministers since America opened a new front in its "war on terror" in the Philippines, with the arrival of U.S. special forces to help combat Abu Sayyaf Muslim militants, believed to have close ties to Osama bin Laden's al-Queda network.
That deployment on the soil of one of ASEAN's oldest members has raised hackles among the grouping's newer members.
"Probably the Philippines has gone too far in the eyes of many in ASEAN. They have all stuck by their own rhetoric that it is an internal matter for the Philippines. The more conservative ones have to sit back an fume," said Thayer.
For much of the past two decades, ASEAN, with its proud tiger cub economies, was seen as the cornerstone of regional stability, says Somjai Phagaphasvivat, an expert in regional politics at Bangkok's Thammasat University.
That image crumbled with the 1997/98 economic crisis and the grouping's common focus became blurred with the rush to expand membership to include communist Vietnam and Loas, military-ruled Myanmar and autocratic Cambodia.
Their inclusion makes the group's traditional decision making by consensus much harder.
ASEAN is going to be divided in Phuket, say analysts, who see a number of countries, such as Vietnam and Myanmar vehemently opposed to action of the type America took in Afghanistan being used elsewhere.
Pyongyang has been emerging from its shell and began taking part in the security-focused ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 2000.
In addition, the approach implied in the axis of evil' runs counter to the attempts by ASEAN to run security issues multilaterally and use the ARF to constrain the United States and China.
"The issue (in Phuket) will be how to reconcile the different views in order to achieve a public face of unity," said Somjai.
"There could be a warning from ASEAN against unilateralism and a heightening of tensions in the region, although they will all acknowledge that terrorism is a threat to global security."
Regimes like Laos, Myanmar and even Cambodia and Malaysia, won't want to allow any precedent which may make them targets themselves, however far fetched that may seem, say analysts.
"The larger thing I think about the axis of evil' is that it heightens the perception of a cowboy, unilateralist America. That is the concern for ASEAN," adds Thayer.
Until Sept. 11, there was scant political will in South East Asia to commit government resources to combat terrorism.
That has begun to change, with Singapore and Malaysia rounding up suspected Muslim militants and others pledging closer cooperation and intelligence sharing.
"There is certainly a convergence of interests among ASEAN countries and the U.S. They are bandying the word terrorism around with great facility to apply to any domestic problem," said Robert Karniol, Asia editor for Jane's Defence Weekly.
"The concern, not just in ASEAN countries, has to be that governments use this as an excuse to crack down on opponents, so it takes on a domestic political tone."