Can Asean move out of its comfort zone?
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) is basking in activities marking its 50th year, but its golden anniversary raises the question of whether the group wields more clout externally rather than in its own backyard, and whether it can — or wants to — move out of its comfort zone in the next 50 years.
Doing so will require a lot of internal work by the 10 member states of an association that though proud of Asean’s centrality and place on the global diplomatic stage, remains very protective of national sovereignty and would be loathe to sacrifice it for the cause of regional integration.
So while Asean convenes strategic venues for the world’s most important multilateral fora each year — its external role — it has found consensus difficult to reach on internal issues like whether to put the Asean logo on the passports of its nationals.
What lies next for Asean as it transitions from a mainly political grouping to a community, a change that expands its activities to just about all aspects of policy?
“Asean’s 50th anniversary is confirmation that the Asean Community is irreversible,” Asean Deputy Secretary-General AKP Mochtan said at the Reporting ASEAN media forum in Bangkok in February.
Indeed, but what Asean is marking is the start of its community-building, rather than its fruition.
“It will not be easy to find a common cause that can bring together the countries of Asean as effectively as the existential challenge that faced the original members during the Cold War,” Jakkrit Srivali, then head of the Asean department at the Thai Foreign Ministry, said at the same event. “But the renewal of Asean is already under way.”
Asean has achieved no small feat by existing for half a century. Created as a bulwark against communism in August 1967, it has been a major factor in regional stability. It later expanded to include countries that were on the other side of the ideological fence to group Southeast Asia’s 10 countries together.
Today, its heightened profile is such that if Asean were one economy, it would be the world’s seventh largest. Jakarta, where the 300-person Asean secretariat is based, is host to a growing number of permanent missions to Asean from its dialogue partners. Asean has 10 dialogue partners, marking the 40th year of such ties with Canada and the European Union this year. Brazil, Mexico, Turkey and Kazakhstan are on the waiting list.
Asean hosts a menu of high-profile
Asean has a way to go in intra-regional trade, a key indicator of integration. Its level of intra-regional trade stands at just 24%. While tariffs in Asean are at virtually zero, non-tariff barriers among countries have been hard to address.
The liberalisation of trade and foreign investment in Asean — today a key production base for global multinationals and manufacturing firms in East Asia — has made it more attractive to external parties. “Investors, policymakers in other parts of the world view Asean as one group,” said economist Suthad Setboonsarng, a former trade representative for Thailand and former Asean deputy-secretary general who is now a board member of Banpu Plc. “They use the easier way of doing business for their own benefit.”
“How do we address the inequality issue, the allocation of benefits from economic growth?” he asked. “A major, major portion of the benefit from the economic growth in Asean accrues not to Asean but outside the Asean countries.”
As Asean’s role widens, concern is growing over the secretariat’s ability to handle this expansion, including the community’s ambitious blueprints.
“The demands placed on Asean have grown but this has not been matched by the resources which are stretched thin by the more than 1,000 meetings each year,” Mr Jakkrit said, adding that Asean’s attention is “torn among a multitude of competing priorities” externally and internally.
“You need something that is much more effective at the centre,” Mr Suthad said.
“Right now we don’t have that and that is one of the biggest weaknesses of Asean.”
Former secretaries-general have aired the same concern, saying the secretariat does not have the means to implement Asean’s decisions or hold states accountable to commitments.
Asean states had designed the secretarygeneral’s position, which rotates among member countries, to be low-key and rather powerless.
The Asean secretary-general has no direct role in making policies or decisions, and is not a spokesperson for Asean.
It may not be something Asean will change, or want to.
As the quip in Asean circles goes: “The Asean secretary-general is more of a secretary than a general”.
“For now, Asean has settled into a safe and rather comfortable zone, where process and ritual are given almost as much attention as the substance,” Mr Jakkrit said.
But he said “the streamlining and reform of the Asean secretariat, of Asean meetings, have increasingly become essential to Asean’s continuing relevance in the next 50 years.”