Thai-Cambodian dispute has implications for AEC

A ‘‘tuk tuk’’ rides past the Thai embassy in Phnom Penh on Sunday. Thailand has asked the United Nations to postpone the World Heritage listing process of the Preah Vihear Temple on its common border with Cambodia, until a territorial dispute is settled under Asean auspices.

22/02/2011
Bangkok Post

The Thai-Cambodian dispute poses a significant challenge to the prospect of achieving the Asean Economic Community in 2015. The meeting of Asean foreign ministers today in Indonesia is therefore critical for the success of the AEC project.

The Cambodian initiative to take the conflict with Thailand to the United Nations Security Council reflects Cambodia's strategy as well as the limits of its endurance. Like it or not, Cambodia had the right to turn to the UN. The Cambodian government apparently felt that the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was failing Phnom Penh and hoped that Asean would take stronger action after the Security Council's meeting.

By contrast, Thai policy leaders believed that the UNSC would exercise considerable restraint in adopting a resolution on the conflict and transfer the matter back to Asean. Thailand would then benefit from Asean's ambiguous practice of non-interference, which is underpinned by the so-called "Asean way". Thus, the Thai government would still be able to follow its preferred approach and deal with the conflict at the bilateral level.

The Security Council meeting on Feb 14 has left the Thai-Cambodian conflict in the hands of Asean and its members. The episode thus illustrates two critical problems Asean is confronting.

First, the Thai-Cambodian affair at the UNSC demonstrates the efforts of both countries to bypass Asean. It can prove either an obstacle or an opportunity for Asean, exposing as it does a long-standing problem of the association: its weak and largely informal institutionalisation.

Second, the UNSC decision puts to a serious test the willingness of Asean's members to place Asean common interests above narrow national ones. In the context of pursuing the AEC, the tension between common and national interests becomes a far more pressing issue than it had been in the past. Only strong commitment to Asean interests will allow the member states to overcome the limitations of nation-state sovereignty.

Weak institutionalisation and the principle of non-interference were originally instruments to assure the five founding Asean members of full sovereign rights over their internal affairs. In the years following 1967, this rationale proved fairly useful for fashioning an anti-Communist bloc in Southeast Asia from a group of insufficiently democratic states.

With the departure of the Cold War from the region in the 1990s, Asean's evolution proceeded in tandem with the demands of globalisation and global actors. As a result, Asean adopted a charter setting the goal of an Asean Economic Community to be achieved by 2015.

For many people, however, Asean's integration process appears to be stagnating. This is due partly to the fact that they overlooked the dialectic relationship between the principle of non-interference and the "Asean way", on the one hand, and the prospect of the 2015 AEC on the other.

The principle of non-interference does not only regard political and military affairs, but also has a significant impact on economic, cultural, educational and environmental cooperation. Therefore, deepening economic integration can be seen as Asean's endeavour to overcome the "Asean way" and the principle of non-interference in the economic realm.

Furthermore, as is illustrated by the European example, advances in economic integration will later spill over to other areas such as culture, education, environment and social policies.

In Southeast Asia, the dynamics of the integration process will be complicated by democratic deficits and the stark disparities in economic development within and between the member states, which are even larger than in the European Union.

At the same time, advances in economic integration and its spillover effects hold out the promise of a fairer distribution of wealth, of better social protection and opportunities, of democratisation, of a higher standard of human rights protection, and last but not least, of peaceful and constructive border management.

Asean can only realise these goals in the foreseeable future if the Asean meeting today agrees on a stronger commitment to the "Asean common interest" as the new norm guiding the policies of member states. Whether or not Asean and the two parties to the conflict will allow Asean's common interest to win over national interests and domestic politics is an open question. The escalation in Thai-Cambodian tensions exemplifies two major impediments to deepening regional economic integration: the culture of nationalism and border problems. Both of them can be exploited for whipping nationalist sentiment, in particular during periods of domestic political instability.

Moving beyond nationalism is never easy. More often than not, nationalistic rhetoric and rituals serve as a cover for the political interests of particular groups. Nor is Southeast Asia an exception to this rule. The regimes in the region have long employed nationalism to mask democratic deficits and economic inequalities by appeals for national unity.

The prospect of an Asean Economic Community challenges not only the Thai and Cambodian governments, but also the other policy leaders of Asean, to consciously let grow the community as they have committed to do so in signing the Asean Charter. In this light, the Cambodian request for Asean mediation in solving the border conflict with Thailand can be seen as affirming the common goals of Asean. Cambodia's experience with international mediation no doubt contributes to its mature appearance on the international stage. Moreover, as a smaller and less developed country than Thailand, Cambodia is likely to be more open to identify itself with international institutions and regional integration. Thailand, however, cannot afford to snub Asean. Recent developments within the country, together with the current global economic crisis and the waves of international discontent in the Middle East, indicate a strong demand for social, economic and political changes that can no longer be achieved at the national level alone.

The development of the AEC and its likely impact on political, social and cultural conditions in the region are therefore crucial for Thailand's future. Against this backdrop, the current conflict presents an opportunity to pioneer a new approach to relations and policy-making in the region, which will promote "Asean common interests" and, at the same time, benefit all member states.

As demonstrated by the European experience, regional integration cannot be completed in one stage. Rather, it evolves over a span of time. Jacques Delors, a former president of the European Commission, once characterised the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe as an "acceleration of history" which pushed European integration ahead.

Whether or not Thai-Cambodian relations can be an "acceleration of history" for Asean's integration lies in the hands of the meeting in Indonesia today.Bypassing Asean once again will not be the right approach. The history of the future is waiting to be made.