For the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, turning 45 is hard to do.
Its perennial and cliched crossroads may soon become a precipice unless
remedial collective action among the group is taken to repair recent setbacks
ahead of its summit in November.
Closing ranks, not pulling rank,
will be needed to reset the Asean centrality and reboot its momentum towards
any sort of a credible and effective community by the start of 2015.
To be sure, Asean as a regional
organisation has done very well.
The group _ composed of the
predominantly Catholic Philippines and mainly Buddhist Thailand on one hand,
and Malay-speaking and Muslim Indonesia and Malaysia on the other _ began
modestly to keep intramural peace and to maintain regional autonomy in the face
of major-power rivalry.
Asean's first two decades of
nation-building in the heat of the Cold War were preoccupied with internal
stability within each member state and with the fight against communist
expansionism, revolving around Thailand as the frontline state vis-a-vis
Indochina.
As the Cold War waned, Asean
ascended. Vietnam withdrew from Cambodia, which transitioned into a normal
country in the early 1990s, culminating with the 1993 United Nations-sponsored
elections. Asean was resilient and instrumental in Cambodia's turnaround.
In 1987, the first major edited
book on Asean's crossroads appeared.
This crossroads has meandered in
different directions at varying lengths, but Asean has not been able to sail
full steam forward in any direction.
Over the following decade, its
preoccupation became prosperity and the creation of a regional order based on
Asean as the central driver.
This period spawned Asean-centred
economic and political-security vehicles such as the Asia-Pacific Economic
Cooperation in 1989 and the Asean Regional Forum (ARF) in 1994. Asia's most
successful regional organisation also expanded and incorporated previous foes
from Indochina and Myanmar.
It promoted freer trade in its
subregions where member borders converged and the regional Asean Free Trade
Area was created in 1992. It is this free trade area which after ineffectual
years has been effectively re-launched as the Asean Economic Community.
Asean's third decade was
exuberant, underpinned by strong economic performance and measured political
leverage in the international arena, as evident in the "Asian values"
controversy in the early and mid-1990s.
As Asean's centrality took hold,
its fourth decade dawned rudely with the Asian economic crisis in 1997-98.
Thailand and Indonesia came under
bailout programmes organised by the International Monetary Fund. The talk of
new "tiger" economies lost its shine.
The silver lining at that time
was a regional response in the formation of the Asean Plus Three, meaningfully
adjoining Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia for the first time.
The Asean Plus Three was the peak
of East Asian economic integration. It produced the most concrete financial
cooperation with the Chiang Mai Initiative, multilateralised with a US$240
billion (7.5 trillion baht) fund to thwart market speculators and to provide
emergency liquidity relief, and it is staffed with a secretariat at the Asean
Plus Three Macroeconomic Research Office.
Just when Asean as a whole
recovered its confidence in economic growth and regionalist drive, it was
diverted and consumed by the US-dominated Global War on Terror (GWOT).
Southeast Asia became the
so-called "second front" of potential global jihadist expansionism.
The GWOT, which mostly transpired under President George W Bush's
administration, was costly to the US and consequential for Asean as it had to
pause on its regionalism.
By its fifth decade, Asean could
breathe and stand upright again. By 2007, the GWOT had run its course. Asean
had expanded the Asean Plus Three into the East Asia Summit, and its inert AF
had been bolstered by the Asean Defence Ministers' Meeting.
Most important, Asean crowned and
culminated its decades of resilience and accomplishments with the Asean
Charter, laying out the terms and programmes to become a kind of democratising,
peaceful, stable and prosperous community by 2015, having accelerated the pace
from the original intent of 2020.
Asean's is a remarkably long and
topsy-turvy road after 45 years.
On one hand, it is haunted again
by patterns of past tension and conflict, at risk of great-power interventions,
uneasy with internal stability of some member states and facing an uncertain
global economic environment. On the other, unprecedented promises of the
connectivity and community that underpin regional security and prosperity
beckon.
Asean is not just at the
crossroads anymore. It cannot get away with moving in a standstill position,
but move forward or risk retrenchment and disarray.
Recent setbacks at the 45th Asean
Ministerial Meeting _ where Asean was unable to come up with a united position
in relations with China _ need to be repaired. The Philippines will need to
tone down its rhetoric, Vietnam step back and Cambodia lean on Asean more than
China.
To keep major-power rivalry at
bay, individual Asean states have to leave the US rebalancing posture untapped
at this time and insist that Beijing put away its "claim first, negotiate
later" map with the infamous nine dash lines around most of the South
China Sea.
Asean will need to prepare for
old tensions along the Thai-Cambodian border around the Preah Vihear temple
after the International Court of Justice issues an additional interpretation of
its 1962 verdict. There are also dam issues between upstream and downstream
Mekong states.
The challenges and opportunities
are daunting and alluring at the same time, just as before.
How Asean fares in the second
half of its fifth decade will depend on its ability to close ranks by November
and the extent to which member states are willing to pool sovereignty for
collective action.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is Director of the Institute of Security and
International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.
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