Pick of the month -- 2 -- changing views on ASEAN

Slowly but surely, a new song is being sung about ASEAN these days. Maybe it’s Indonesia’s able leadership; maybe it’s the pressure of global economic headaches, which suddenly make different forms of regionalism look more attractive; maybe it’s the signs of hope in Myanmar; maybe it’s the perceived cold winds blowing down from China – whatever the reason, the tone seems to be changing. There is less emphasis on ASEAN’s (manifest) defects, and more emphasis on what it can offer.

I commented on The Economist’s two days ago. But Shekhar Shah (16 Oct) also argues, “ASEAN has had considerable experience in coordinating policy responses and domestic policy choices, both those that have been successful and those that have failed. Asian members should bring this experience to the G20. ASEAN’s durability and openness to change presents an opportunity for the Asian G20 members to bring this ASEAN spirit to the G20. This will equip the G20 to be effective over the generation that will be required to rebuild the global economic order.”

Maria Monica Wihardja (12 Nov) captures the prevailing tone, writing that ASEAN’s “stability as an institution for over 44 years and its visible maturing over this time is testimony that ASEAN serves as a regional power-broker and conciliator. Its maintenance of a ‘dynamic equilibrium’ in the region by avoiding the hegemony of any power also supports a successful and fluid regionalism, including the emergence of fora like the EAS… A sense of community, solidarity and unity — ASEAN’s greatest offering — must not be lost; it must be promoted beyond the organisation. Asia is one of a handful of regions that remain economically prosperous, peaceful and socially stable, and every effort must be made to maintain it this way.”

While forecasting no easy road ahead, Awidya Santikajaya (14 Nov) comments: “Before the American and European crises, ASEAN was discredited because of its ineffectiveness, lack of commitment to becoming a supranational body and lax rules. But, now ASEAN is praised as a comfort vehicle for regionalism.”

And Teuku Rezasyah (23 Nov), a researcher at the Indonesian Center of Democracy, Diplomacy and Defense, tells the Jakarta Post that ASEAN has shown itself to be “bonafide, credible and acceptable to the West” during Indonesia’s chairmanship. “ASEAN,” he is quoted as saying, “has successfully made the US think over whether they want to continue criticizing Myanmar and push it even closer to China [...] or invite Myanmar to learn together with ASEAN how to be a modern democratic country”.

Such a change in the dominant tone is long overdue. ASEAN, as I have posted before, has in the past received far more than its fair share of pillorying and pummelling.

But narratives are fickle. ASEAN is flavour of the month at the moment. But it could find itself back in the firing line for a number of reasons.  

One is strategic. As ASEAN defence ministers stressed in their recent meeting (25 Oct), they want to forge ahead with cooperation, and undertake “more concrete actions” in key areas like disaster relief, peace-keeping, and military industry cooperation. But mention of the South China Sea brings the following proviso from Indonesian Defence Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro, chairman of the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting: “We know what we don’t want in our Political-Security Community. We don’t want to be a military pact; we don’t want to do anything against any outsider; we don’t want to use force.” It is not difficult to imagine, however, the kinds of voices that might want to challenge this pragmatic and centrist stance.

Economically, too, there are two distinct “truths” that need careful balancing. On the one hand, ASEAN’s economic integration efforts have often been too readily dismissed. Yet while all the dismissing has been going on, progress has been happening on the ground. Luke Hunt (16 Nov) notes “a dawning in the Western conscious that ASEAN will economically integrate as a community by 2015, opening their economies to free trade in goods, services and investments, encompassing a population of about 500 million people”. It is interesting how often the business press already refers to “ASEAN” as a unit. Indeed, growing de facto regionalism in and beyond ASEAN is one of the reasons a recent report by the Asia Society concludes that the US “should renew and deepen engagement” with East Asia as a whole, and pushes for “a new US diplomacy with ASEAN”.

On the other hand, ASEAN's “growing integration”, while real, is still very much a work in progress – even “wishful thinking” for some. Non-tariff barriers and labour mobility remain substantial stumbling-blocks. For some domestic constituencies, economic integration within ASEAN, let alone across a wider area, where bigger and/or more developed players hold substantial influence, is hard to swallow. As a BBC report (24 Oct) notes, “ASEAN leaders are quick to point out that the benefits they get from a strong economic relationship with China are far more advantageous than isolating one of the world's strongest economies, and an increasingly important world power”, and ASEAN Secretary General Surin highlights the decreasing trend of the China-favourable trade balance. But there are plenty of vested interests who will want to defend their turf, and there are plenty of ideological opponents, too, who resent that ASEAN is “continuously used as a tool to implement the global capitalism agenda”.

And free trade is itself becoming another potential divider of the Asia-Pacific region, in a way that will also test ASEAN and its loyalties. Two trade initiatives are currently offering alternatives to APEC: the US-favoured Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the China-favoured ASEAN+* initiative. These may prove ultimately cooperative. But until that cooperation is realized, the differently envisioned trade concepts also have the capacity to carry strategic messages. This – along with multiple domestic considerations – may account for Indonesian President SBY’s “cold” response to the TPP.

So, ASEAN is enjoying something of a discursive high at the moment. But in attempting to chart the path that is best for SEA and its wider environment (as opposed to best for some other individual players), it could very easily find itself – unfortunately – back in the position of political punch-ball.

[*ADDED 29/11: China was initially associated with an ASEAN+3-based East Asian Free Trade Area (EAFTA), arguing that a (Japanese-associated) East Asia Summit-based Comprehensive Economic Partnership in East Asia (CEPEA) might be a potential eventual follow-up. Shekhar suggests that China's “exclusion from the TPP offers a common point for them to actively pursue quicker implementation of CEPEA”.]