Never before in its 45 years of existence has the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) received so much public attention in Thailand.
Until recently, Asean was merely
an inaccessible acronym, confined to the stifling corridors of officialdom,
notorious for its several hundred meetings per year. It was a platform for
officials and bureaucracies of member states, otherwise known as "Track
I", complemented by contributions and engagements from "Track
II" of academics and regional think-tanks.
Such distance and deficit between
Asia's most durable regional organisation at the top and its "Track
III" inhabitants and stakeholders down below have been markedly reduced.
Asean has belatedly become a household word, included in everyday parlance and
featured in seminars and workshops almost on a daily basis. Yet most references
to Asean in Thailand are centred on the Asean Economic Community (AEC), one of
three so-called "pillars" of the much-vaunted Asean Community (AC),
along with the Asean Political-Security Community (APSC) and Asean
Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC).
The AEC has captured the Thai
popular imagination of Asean as a regional organisation at the expense of the
APSC and ASCC pillars. This article homes in on the APSC as the neglected
pillar of the AC. Without sufficient focus and effectiveness on political and
security dimensions at a time of rising tension in the region, the AC project
may well come to naught.
Unsurprisingly, the AEC attracts
most of the public spotlight mainly because of the fear and concern that Thai
businesses will face stiffer competition and that Thai society will be
adversely affected by freer flows of labour, capital and technology.
The Thai bureaucracy,
particularly the Ministry of Commerce, was tasked and funded to promote
awareness and preparations for the AC by Jan 1, 2015. Even when Asean leaders
agreed to delay the AC promulgation by one year to Dec 31, 2015, which
practically means 1 Jan 2016, the Thai public hardly took notice and still
stuck with "AC 2015". Nor did it matter to the Thais that the
awareness and public campaigns about the AC and its pillars and blueprints have
been much less prominent in other Asean capitals such as Yangon, Hanoi, Manila
and Phnom Penh. Once Thais get into a sloganeering and bandwagoning frenzy,
they tend to go overboard.
To be sure, the current Thai
obsession with the AEC is a fruitful undertaking, lacking in perspective. As
the AEC has posed a "threat" of sorts, Thai firms, traders and
entrepreneurs are making adjustments, restructuring, investment and trade plans
they would not countenance otherwise. Thai officials have also gone through
skills-improvement courses, awareness programmes, and exposure to regional and
international affairs more than ever, mostly with the AEC in mind. To this
extent, the AEC is a godsend for informing, enticing and forcing Thai firms,
businesspeople, bureaucrats and laymen to make adjustments that will lead to
overall efficiency gains and skills upgrading for the Thai economy and
workforce.
Whatever the real prospects and
outcomes of the regional build-up towards the AC by end-2015, Thailand's
AEC-fixated trends and patterns are likely to continue with growing intensity.
But while the AEC involves hard rice-and-curry issues that constitute the
lifeblood and lifelines of Asean's regional economies and businesses, with
far-reaching ramifications for societies across the region (and hence the
ASCC), the APSC has virtually been ignored in the Thai collective imagination.
It is a strange and alarming
phenomenon. Although Asean's economic prospects are robust and promising, its
thorny and contentious political and security issues and dynamics could
undermine, reverse and forestall the gains from regional economic
interdependence.
Chief among Asean's security
concerns is the Thai-Cambodian border conflict over the Preah Vihear temple,
which the International Court of Justice (ICJ) awarded to Cambodia in 1962. The
United Nations Education, Social, and Cultural Organisation (Unesco)
subsequently accepted the listing of the temple as a World Heritage Site in
2008. The 4.6 square kilometres of land on which the temple is situated has
been a source of controversy but has been used by both sides over the years.
Owing to bilateral tension that included military skirmishes in 2011 _ Asean's
first serious post-Cold War interstate military conflict _ Cambodia has
petitioned the ICJ for clarification of its 1962 landmark ruling. A decision in
favour of Cambodia could reignite the flames of domestic conflict in Thailand,
with the potential for another bilateral military clash between the two
countries in the contested border area.
The South China Sea is another
issue area that could make the AC project futile. China's growing assertiveness
has divided Asean's cohesiveness and challenged Asean's centrality in dealing
with regional conflicts. The Philippines and Vietnam are stacked up against
China, with support from Malaysia and Brunei. Yet the mainland Asean members,
particularly Cambodia, have stood by Beijing. This Asean rift over the South
China Sea is likely to widen unless China backs away from unilateral action and
submits itself to regional rules of conduct in accordance with international
law. Asean is also beset by persistent and deadly internal ethno-nationalist
conflicts in southern Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia's Papua, notwithstanding
the recently concluded peace agreement in Mindanao in the southern Philippines.
These internal conflicts may
widen or germinate with jihadist elements from outside. If exacerbated, the
conflicts could lead to violence and mayhem on a regional scale and subvert
Asean's aspired regional integration.
In addition, a broad array of
non-traditional security (NTS) challenges stand in the way of the AC project,
ranging from natural disasters and transnational crimes to human and drug
trafficking.
These NTS are regional borderless
in their detrimental effects, demanding a collective regional response,
handling, and enforcement. Asean has too often come up short on meeting NTS
challenges. Integrating Asean in a community will require a more effective
regional framework to tackle NTS threats that transcend Asean's cardinal
non-interference principle.
The broader geopolitical and
geo-economic regional canvass also will put the AC project to the test. Asean
is the new battleground in the superpower rivalry and competition between China
and the United States.
The United States'
"pivot" to Asia has sounded alarm bells in Beijing in fear of
containment and encirclement, as much as China's perceived and real
aggressiveness in the South China Sea territorial disputes is nudging certain
Asean states to lean on and invite a greater American role in the region. The
China-US tension may intensify into bipolar spheres of influence between
maritime and mainland Asean states, thereby further dividing the organisation
and eroding its regional centrality.
Just as the ASCC cannot be
neglected because the societies and peoples of Asean must be connected, pooled
and socialised into a common regional identity and regard for the Asean Charter
and its community objectives, the APSC is paramount. Without an Asean that is
at peace among member states and within each of them in a stable regional
environment where the external major powers are kept in check and on balance,
the AEC will be meaningless.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is director of the Institute of Security and
International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.
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