Meeting ASEAN's challenges
With member states involved in bickering over trivia, the ASEAN 2003 summit proved to be yet another fatuous talking shop, writes Damien Kingsbury*
The recently concluded meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has again shown that despite the desire of each member to participate in an international forum in which their voice is heard, none is very enthusiastic about sharing such a forum with its neighbours. And each of the 10 member states is almost as ambivalent about ASEAN's wider grouping, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which has a more strategic focus.
The two main results of the recent meeting, held in Phnom Penh, was the call for the early release of jailed Burmese pro- democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, and the provision of lukewarm support for the idea of creating an ASEAN Security Community (ASC). As the Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda said, the creation of the ASC was intended to provide ASEAN with a sense of purpose and relevance within the changing context of global politics. Purpose and relevance have been in short supply at recent ASEAN meetings.
With some member states making a none-too enthusiastic request for Burma to release Suu Kyi, ASEAN was seen to be responding to international pressure, rather than to any serious conviction that member states should conform to certain political principles.
ASEAN also continued with its attempts, albeit it with little success, to establish a free trade zone amongst its member states. But it has been strategic matters that have provided ASEAN with what little relevance it has enjoyed. Its initial focus was on events in Indochina, and later specifically on Cambodia.
But the move by Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos towards market economies under one-party systems, and the ending of Burma's self-imposed isolation, has meant that the original group of six ASEAN states -- Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines and Brunei -- has expanded to 10. In welcoming the newcomers into the pro-capitalist organisation during the 1990s, the local strategic focus of ASEAN was lost.
The creation of the ASC could have made ASEAN focus on wider international issues. But both Indonesia and Thailand have stressed that the ASC is not a defence pact. In this they clearly demarcated the ASC from the now defunct Southeast Asia Treaty Organisation, which was invented by the United States to mirror NATO during the Cold War. Instead, the ASC is intended to promote closer political and security cooperation amongst ASEAN member states, which is little beyond what is already being done by ASEAN.
The over-riding quality of ASEAN has traditionally been the agreement between member states not to comment on each other's affairs. This has particularly been the case in relation to the far from perfect record on democracy and human rights that each member state has accumulated and, to varying degrees, continues to accumulate.
Although democracy has moved forward amongst ASEAN member states, particularly in Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines, each continues to have troubles, especially Indonesia and the Philippines. And the political culture of each member state varies considerably from its neighbours, meaning there can be -- and at times has been -- friction. The reason for ASEAN meetings failing to degenerate, however, is due to a shared commitment to not mentioning any of the numerous issues that rankle between member states.
That being the case, there has been a growing tendency by member states to be more open about how they view each other over the past two or three years, even if only outside the formal confines of each ASEAN summit. In particular, Thailand has little patience for Burma, its historical enemy, while Malaysia and the Philippines continue to snipe at each other over once- disputed territory between the state of Sabah and the southwest Philippines, as do Singapore and Malaysia over various minor matters.
The Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Vietnam also squabble over various parts of the Spratley and Paracel island groups that are scattered to the north of Borneo and southeast of Vietnam. Complicating this, China too has a claim on the islands, and tensions occasionally flare between each of the claimants over these uninhabitable, rocky outcrops. The strategic importance of the islands in the middle of the South China Sea, their territorial spread and the fishing and mineral exploration rights that would go with possession, make this an issue that is rarely discussed at ASEAN meetings.
In a break with tradition, the most recent meeting included a discussion on the Burmese regime's incarceration of Suu Kyi. The other member states have publicly urged Burma to release Suu Kyi, although none has protested too loudly at the jailing. And it is almost needless to say that the United States' preferred position of economic sanctions against Burma was politely ignored.
As the biggest, and on occasion, most domineering ASEAN state, Indonesia received full rhetorical support for the new phase of its war in the north-western province of Aceh. Despite claims of widespread human rights abuses, the ASEAN states duly stepped in behind Indonesia to affirm its territorial integrity, and to say that while there might have been some gun- running to the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) in the past, this will certainly now stop.
But like most political promises, and especially in a region characterised by the gap between rhetoric and reality, if there is a dollar to be made by unscrupulous generals in selling guns to GAM, they will continue to do so. The major source of weapons has been from Cambodia via Thailand -- with a few extra guns added at this point -- to northern Malaysia. It has been a lucrative business which politicians can or will do little about.
Indeed, GAM has claimed that one of its sources of weapons has been a particular Indonesian army general, who has sold them guns sourced in the archipelago as well as directly from the Indonesian military arms manufacturer, PT Pindad, in Bandung, a couple of hours' drive from Jakarta.
Facing a similar level of military corruption and its own separatist movement, the Philippines is particularly keen to support Indonesia's territorial integrity. But in any case, Indonesia has made it clear that to be anything less than in full support of its current battle with GAM constitutes opposition to its territorial integrity. And that, it has made known quietly, is tantamount to hostility. So all member states are on Indonesia's side, in public anyway.
But while the Philippines has tried to be a good corporate member of the regional group, its own idiosyncrasies continue to pop up, this time by wanting action on North Korea. In this it can be seen to be acting as something of a champion of US regional interests, reflecting the closely intertwined (if occasionally difficult) relationship the two countries have had for the past century. Like a maturing convent school-girl, the Philippines might have escaped the amourous embrace of the US military bases, but it continues to flirt with US military interests.
So, ASEAN looking askance at this tryst, arranged a compromise, which was that any shared position on North Korea, and more importantly its relationship with the US, should be deferred to the meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum, which immediately followed. The ARF includes as participant "observers" the US, Russia, China, Australia, Canada, the European Union, India, Japan, Mongolia, New Zealand, South Korea, North Korea and Papua New Guinea, with Pakistan and East Timor waiting in the wings for membership.
While North Korea is presenting a dilemma to the US and some of its allies, the strongest position on this issue came from US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who said that other Asian leaders had agreed that North Korea's nuclear programme was unacceptable. However, the ARF itself did not formally endorse Powell's comments.
The ARF's reluctance to endorse the US position reflects its wide range of competing strategic interests and perspectives. Somewhat like ASEAN itself, the ARF has proven to be a useful meeting place for many. But it has similarly shown that it is not likely to endorse any action that requires a strong collective commitment, much less formal action.
* The writer is the head of the Philosophical, Political and International Studies at Deakin University, Australia, and is author of Southeast Asia: A Political profile, Oxford University Press, 2001.
