SOUTH-EAST ASIA: ASEAN Looks for its Second Wind

   By Wendy Wilson 

WASHINGTON, May 21 — Just as the United States recently began war games in Thailand, a North Korean delegation left Vietnam after attending a meeting of the Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) Regional Forum, the main forum for security dialogue in the Asia-Pacific.

It is a curious, albeit fitting example, of how South-east Asian countries manage security in the region: They comfortably talk to all major blocs on the international scene, believing that having regular dialogue is itself an investment toward peace.

In the years after the 1997 Asian economic crisis, critics have criticised ASEAN for its failure to do more for its economic woes, slow action on its free-trade goals and its regional security aims.

Indeed, "some call it a sunset organisation", says Ahmad Zakaria, a South-east Asian expert from Ohio University who used to be with the National University of Malaysia.

Others have probably written ASEAN off already as several members battle economic woes and political instability — but it remains of strategic value when it comes to Asia-Pacific stability that is crucial to the world.

Zakaria says ASEAN, South-east Asia's key diplomatic club of 10 nations, has to be credited for trying its own brand of diplomacy to steady the sometimes choppy security waters in the post-Cold War era.

"ASEAN has been able to forge unilateralism within a multilateral framework," Zakaria said at a discussion sponsored by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation here.

For instance, despite ASEAN's reduced clout after the 1997 crisis, "in the last two years ASEAN has been able to achieve China, Japan, Korean involvement — it's own lifeline — to be able to latch onto this new arrangement to be able to survive," he said.

While the aim of this grouping, called 'ASEAN Plus Three', is mainly economic, its key value remains strategic: to engage Asia's northern powers and together form an East Asian grouping that meets regularly — the same grouping that the United States had been wary of in previous years.

"Some people think it (ASEAN Plus Three) is nothing" and an East Asian grouping for a world market is but a dream, "but what I see is that some countries will see great merit (in it)," Zakaria explained.

Zakaria adds that ASEAN, with traditional links with the United States given its security presence in the region, has been nurturing other ties with the outside world. One is the Asia- Europe Meeting (ASEM) that will become a "balancing act" with the region's ties with Washington and Tokyo, he says.

Some Asian foreign policy experts say the United States has not given enough appreciation for ASEAN's value during in these last difficult years for the 34-year-old grouping.

"Washington wants to focus on its relations with allies in North-east Asia and with Australia," Julius Caesar Parrenas, senior adviser to the Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, observed in a published commentary this month. "South-east Asia is a gap in the jigsaw puzzle of America's Asian strategy."

He says ASEAN's unity is "vital in preventing major powers' complex balance of interests in South-east Asia from unraveling". Indeed, Parrenas notes, "it remains the only candidate accepted by everyone for brokering a regional security dialogue".

The ASEAN Regional Forum, for instance, is a unique diplomatic creature. It is a non-negotiating forum, is not bound by any treaty. It has no formal organisation, but is a venue for 23 Asia- Pacific members, from ASEAN members to the United States, China, Russia, India and the European Union, to meet yearly and exchange views freely.

ASEAN played a key role in North Korea's international debut last year, when it made ASEAN's meetings in Bangkok in July the venue for its first major interaction in world diplomacy.

Zakaria calls himself a "cautious optimist" on ASEAN, but says it bears watching how it will survive.

Since its founding in 1967, ASEAN has pursued a course marked more by sheer stubbornness than speed. In a region known for its historic lack of regionalism, that in itself is quite an achievement.

In the beginning, ASEAN was neither the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) nor the European Community, and the situation remains, former U.S. ambassador Ronald Palmer of George Washington University told the same seminar here.

He notes that ASEAN was formed though "every one of these nations has a border problem with the other. All ten of them."

Still since the Asian financial disaster in 1997 ASEAN "has lost its lustre", says Zakaria. Revitalising its sheen, he adds, is "a question of leadership".

That touches one of ASEAN's weak points at the moment, with Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines immersed in their own political troubles.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad remains in power after 20 years, but faces signs of dwindling support from ethnic Malays after the ouster of his political foe, former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, in recent years.

In January, Filipinos ousted what many believed was a corrupt president in Joseph Estrada and made way for his vice president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, to succeed him. But her government faces a battle for legitimacy, and the country's economic woes are far from resolved.

Indonesia is stuck in a political quagmire as President Abdurrahman Wahid and his critics lock horns over his possible impeachment over corruption charges.

Zakaria says the political instability in Indonesia, ASEAN's largest country and for a long time viewed as a spokesman for the developing world, has meant the group no longer has the traditional leader it had. "Indonesia has not been able to provide leadership that has been necessary for Asia," he said.

Because Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia have been playing a "custodial role" in the region, "if these three countries can get their act together, it can provide for revitalisation (for ASEAN)," he added.

But these countries are also engrossed in domestic matters. "Some people say that Malaysia is about to experience a fantastic reformation," noted Zakaria as an example. "I don't think the Malays will give up political power. They won't wake and say 'let's share power today!' "

In economics too, there has not always been one common direction. While ASEAN countries have agreed on currency-swap agreements with nations like China and Japan — a lesson learned from the 1997 crisis — they have also pursued their own initiatives.

Malaysia has been backtracking on elements of the ASEAN free trade agreement, citing the need to protect some sectors.

Even as ASEAN members say they stick by the goal of an ASEAN Free Trade Area by 2002, some countries have been exploring free-trade agreements outside ASEAN to stay competitive. Singapore, for example, is pursuing a free trade accord with New Zealand, resulting in some rancour among the regional ranks.

But as its moves after the Asian crisis show, "ASEAN will take on globalisation, but not on U.S. terms," said Pek Koon Hung of the Centre for Asian Studies at the American University. "Globalisation distributes economic (benefits) unequally."

Despite all of ASEAN's woes, the group is trying to find new ways to survive one of its most trying times since it was formed in 1967. Thus, it may be too early too write off ASEAN.

Zakaria says it has to be seen if ASEAN can "sustain its achievements", but its future "looks more promising than a perilous one". (IPS/2001)