Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said discussions to include the US and Russia in the East Asian Summit (EAS) would take place at the ASEAN ministerial meeting in Vietnam in July, rejecting reports that Jakarta and Singapore have agreed on what way to host the two Cold War rivals.
Singapore media quoted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as saying that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono supported his ASEAN+8 initiative during a bilateral meeting in Singapore last month.
To include the US and Russia, Singapore is pushing for the formation of a new forum it calls ASEAN+8, while Jakarta has called for the expansion of the East Asia Summit. Both initiatives would convene the two powers along with the 10 ASEAN members, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.
ASEAN+8 will convene whenever the APEC summit is held in Asia, while the expanded EAS will meet every year, back to back with the ASEAN Summit.
“We are yet to have a full discussion on the issue of the future of ASEAN regional architecture, including the most optimum modality... no single option has been ruled in or out,” Marty told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
Lee was quoted by Channel News Asia as saying: “...We talked about how we could involve America and Russia in the regional cooperation further and we thought that one way to do this was to do what is called ASEAN+8.
“And that’s what we have been discussing among the ASEAN countries. Singapore supports it, President Yudhoyono also supported it and says, ‘why not get the foreign ministers to discuss it with the ASEAN countries and try and reach a consensus?’”
Russia has thrown weight behind the expansion of EAS, while the US said they were learning on the proposals. The inclusion of the US and Russia in the East Asia Summit has come at the height of postponement of visit by US President Barack Obama to Indonesia and Australia and political shake ups in Japan.
Syamsul Hadi, lecturer of international relations at the University of Indonesia, said the Obama’s recent postponement of his visit to Indonesia reflected that the US has given little priority to Indonesia, the largest nation in ASEAN, amid the domestic preoccupations.
“The postponement shows that Obama has been constrained from engaging more with Southeast Asia. At the same time we have to rethink the benefit of engaging with them”.
Marty previously said the expansion of the EAS is to respond to regional architecture initiatives launched by Japan and Australia.
Many have speculated the EAS expansion was aimed at ensuring ASEAN maintains a central role amid the emergence of new regional architecture.
Former Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama floated the idea of an East Asia Community last year when he rose to power, while Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd proposed the Asia Pacific Union.
Japan’s new prime minister, Naoto Kan, said last Friday he would continue to push for his predecessor’s East Asia Community initiative, whereby Tokyo would seek better integration in the region modeled on the EU.
In a speech last month, Rudd welcomed the ASEAN’s initiatives to convene the US and Russia with EAS member states, raising speculations that the premier would give up on his idea of Asia Pacific Union — details of which have remained sketchy.
