New challenges to ASEAN

08/08/2009
Posted at: www.thejakartapost.com

On Aug. 8, 2009, ASEAN will celebrate its 42nd anniversary. It is quite natural that when celebrating its anniversary, ASEAN should ask itself what has been achieved and what should be done in the future. The 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) made a historic move when its leaders adopted the ASEAN Charter in Singapore in 2007.

At the Singapore Summit, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the ASEAN Charter could be the catalyst for speeding up and strengthening regional integration, and could enhance the process by which ASEAN transforms from a loose association to an ASEAN community. It also provides for an elevation of ASEAN into a rule-based and people-centered organization with a legal personality that rests on the pillars of political-security cooperation, economic cooperation and sociocultural cooperation.

The charter is based on the principles of respecting fundamental freedoms, the promotion and protection of human rights, the promotion of social justice and the upholding of the United Nations Charter and international law.

However, following its adoption, some people representing civil society have criticized the charter. Some even argue the charter is irrelevant as it does not reflect "the ideals of ASEAN".

To some extent, this assessment may be correct, taking into account that there is no provision in the charter that clearly mentions the involvement of "the people" and the establishment of any institutionalized mechanism allowing civil society to contribute to ASEAN's decision making process.

More importantly, is whether ASEAN really can act together in facing future challenges at the regional level, including its own internal problems such as the tension between Thailand and Cambodia over the Preah Vihear Temple, overlapping territorial claims in the South China Sea or the problematic regime in Myanmar? How ASEAN will react to ongoing global crises such as climate change, energy security, food security and financial crises? Or how will ASEAN respond to the newly emerging regional architecture in the Asia Pacific, especially with the rise of China and India as regional powers?

The current regional architecture in the Asia Pacific is really a major challenge for ASEAN.

Following the establishment of ASEAN, there are now other pillars of regional mechanisms that exist in the region, namely: the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the ASEAN Regional forum (ARF), the ASEAN Plus Three (APT) with China, Japan and Korea and the East Asian Summit (EAS). Since ASEAN as a group has been actively involved in all these regional mechanisms, ASEAN can only play its role if its members can cooperate more cohesively to solve the aforementioned internal problems in the region.

But how will ASEAN be able to play a convergent role among all these regional mechanisms? The answer is clear; it is necessary to consolidate all the existing regional mechanisms in order to avoid duplication in terms of focus of cooperation and activities. For instance, which forum or mechanism should deal with social and economic cooperation and which one should be responsible for strategic political and security dialogue.

There is another serious challenge that ASEAN needs to deal with in the future - the institutional-building of a new regional architecture in the Asia Pacific. For the last few years, at least, among Track-Two communities, the idea of shaping a new East Asian institution as an overarching body for strategic dialogues and security cooperation has been thoroughly discussed. In their views, if it is based on size, population, GDP and strategic importance, the new institution or mechanism should not be a large group. Countries that would be eligible to join this new grouping are Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US. They will be called the G-8 for East Asia.

But in order to make this grouping reliable as a future concert of power in East Asia, ASEAN as a group should be included, at least be represented by the chair and the secretary-general of ASEAN. Although it is not likely this new regional architecture will come into being in the near future, ASEAN should still be able to respond once the discussion of this new idea becomes more official in the region.

In this context, the proposal made by the Australian prime minister on the establishment of an Asia-Pacific community is an indication that a process leading to a totally new overarching regional architecture in the Asia Pacific has already started.

Behind Kevin Rudd's idea is a regional institution that spans the entire Asia Pacific region and is capable of engaging in a full spectrum of dialogue, cooperation and action on economic and political matters and future security challenges. The proposal was also aimed at overcoming the compartmentalization of existing regional institutions by creating an effective leadership forum where major political, economic and security issues can be dealt with holistically rather than piecemeal.

Therefore, sooner or later, ASEAN should be ready to respond to it. Happy anniversary!
The writer is an official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The views expressed are his own personal opinion.