Bigger role for Asean, with room to grow

Rodolfo C. Severino
The Straits Times

However, the political split in Thailand and the diplomatic sniping and occasional armed skirmishes between Thailand and Cambodia have projected an image of Asean in disarray.

DEC 28 — As the year ends, one is driven to pick events that may have been significant to Southeast Asia. To me, the most significant events this year were, not necessarily in the order of their significance, the Impeccable “incident”, the global economic crisis, the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen, the United States' strengthening links with Asean, Barack Obama becoming United States President, the fortification of structures in the South China Sea, the continued rise of China, the effectivity of the Asean Charter, and the bad blood between Thailand and Cambodia.

On March 8, the Impeccable, a US naval vessel designed to tow surveillance equipment, was confronted — “harassed”, the US said — by Chinese ships in China's 322km exclusive economic zone (EEZ), as it sought information on a submarine base on Hainan island. Both China and the US agree the Impeccable was in China's EEZ. But they disagree on whether it was legal under international law for the Impeccable to do what it was doing in the area. This incident highlighted the strategic rivalry between China and the US, notwithstanding their economic interdependence.

The tensions characterising the rivalry also underline the differences in values between China and the US. This year happens to be the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square “massacre”, as the West calls it, or “incident”, as the Chinese prefer. The event cost many young lives and turned the spotlight on the contending values of the West, on the one hand, and China and others, on the other. The West regarded Tiananmen as an assault on the rights of people; Beijing defended its actions by pointing to the value that China placed on political stability as a prerequisite for economic development.

This year has seen the US government, for strategic and economic reasons, reaching out to Asean. On the occasion of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Singapore, Obama met the leaders of all 10 Asean countries, including Myanmar, indicating the intention to make such meetings an annual affair. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton travelled thrice to East Asia this year, including a visit to the Asean Secretariat.

On one of her trips, Clinton signed the instrument by which Washington acceded to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia. Obama's predecessor, George W. Bush, had already met the leaders of Asean countries that were members of Apec, appointed the first US ambassador to Asean, and started a large programme to support Asean integration.

Significantly, structures in the South China Sea have continued to be fortified this year. While all claimants have an interest in peace and the safety of navigation and overflight in this body of water, they each have a strategic interest in strengthening their respective toeholds on the features that they occupy and the waters that they control.

China has continued its rapid economic rise, despite the global economic crisis, and has seen its political and diplomatic influence surge consequently. These have enlarged the potential for China's dominance of East Asia and, therefore, its need to proceed in such a way so as to avoid the travails of, say, Washington's erstwhile dominance of the Western Hemisphere.

This year is the start of the implementation of the Asean Charter, which entered into force in December last year. The terms of reference for the regional human rights commission have been adopted and its members named. For the first time in an Asean document, the Charter enshrines aspirations for the internal behaviour of states — democracy, human rights and fundamental freedoms, rule of law, good governance and social justice — as well as Asean's longstanding norms for inter-state conduct.

Asean's processes for decision making and dispute settlement have also been streamlined. An experts group is hard at work putting legal flesh on the bare bones of major Charter provisions. The member-states' permanent representatives have been appointed, and ambassadors of many other countries have been accredited to Asean.

However, the political split in Thailand and the diplomatic sniping and occasional armed skirmishes between Thailand and Cambodia have projected an image of Asean in disarray. It is perhaps the sense of an ineffectual Asean that has prompted Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to propose an overarching Asia-Pacific structure to deal, at summit level, with both security and economic issues. Unclear as to its membership and as to whether it would lead to an improvement over present Asean-centred structures, the proposal has apparently met with resistance or tepid reaction.

Meanwhile, Vietnam is diligently preparing to take the helm of Asean and Asean-centred forums next year.