TheJakartaPost

Please Update your browser

Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.

Jakarta Post

For ASEAN, talk is a real bargain

Talk is cheap, but if it means preventing nations from engaging in bloody and destructive wars, it is an unbeatable bargain

Endy M. Bayuni (The Jakarta Post)
Washington, DC
Thu, August 4, 2011

Share This Article

Change Size

For ASEAN, talk is a real bargain

T

alk is cheap, but if it means preventing nations from engaging in bloody and destructive wars, it is an unbeatable bargain. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which marks its 44th anniversary on Aug. 8, knows this all too well.

The region has grown and become prosperous over the past 44 years, largely by talking their way out of many conflicts. Now expanded in membership and scope, ASEAN is called on to play an active role in preventing the escalation of tensions that could plunge Asia into a theater of wars through the only way it knows best: diplomacy.

The plethora of ASEAN meetings, including the expanded versions that include countries from outside the region, may seem like one giant talk-shop fest for diplomats staying in luxury hotels.

Most meetings end with a long communiqué listing their accomplishments, which to the lay person seem of limited value and add up to nothing more than diplomatic niceties glossing over deep-seated differences.

Such widespread skepticism was shown again after the ASEAN Regional Forum convened in Bali in mid-July. The ARF is the only gathering in East Asia in which regional political and security issues are discussed.

The annual ARF, held back-to-back with a series of ASEAN foreign ministerial meetings, involves 27 countries, including the US, Russia and the EU and just about every country in Asia, including North Korea.

Expectations ran high before the Bali meeting given the rising political tensions in Asia in particular, but not exclusively pitting China and some ASEAN members over sovereignty claims in the South China Sea.

The countries in dispute are no closer to any resolution after Bali, although Beijing and ASEAN did agree on starting discussions on a preliminary set of non-binding behavioral guidelines in the South China Sea.

For ASEAN, this is a major accomplishment. Anything that moves Beijing from the 2002 declaration on the conduct in the South China Sea, which it signed with ASEAN, is progress. It may not lead to a solution, but it gets China to talking.

This is ASEAN at its best, one consistent with history.

ASEAN never has the pretension of having the ability to resolve territorial disputes among members or between members and outsiders. But ASEAN has been successful in persuading countries to sweep these conflicts under the carpet and to focus their energy and efforts on cooperation instead.

This formula largely accounts for ASEAN’s historical success in turning Southeast Asia from a zone filled with ideological and territorial conflicts in the 1950s and 1960s to a region of peace and prosperity.

Where would Southeast Asia be today if it wasn’t for the foresight of foreign ministers of ASEAN five founding members — Adam Malik of Indonesia, Tun Abdul Razak of Malaysia, Narciso Ramos of the Philippines, S. Rajaratnam of Singapore and Thanat Khoman of Thailand. Gathering in Bangkok on Aug. 8, 1967, they decided their countries should put aside differences and start working for the common good.

Underpinning the peace in ASEAN were a series of treaties, including the Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) signed in 1971, the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) signed in 1976, and the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (SEANWF).

All the five new members were required to sign the pacts before joining. ASEAN leaders signed a charter in 2007 that commits its members to form a single economic, political and socio-cultural community by 2015.

ASEAN also pushed all countries to sign the TAC, in which the signatory renounces the use of force as a precondition to joining the East Asia Summit, now seen as the vehicle of choice to build an Asia-Pacific community. The US signed in 2009.

ASEAN’s talk-shop fests now includes two annual summits, with one of them held back-to-back with the East Asia Summit (EAS) involving 20 countries. President Barack Obama will be making the US debut at the EAS in Bali in November. Political and security issues are also discussed in the ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting Plus, which includes the US and countries outside Southeast Asia.

But the ARF — an offshoot of ASEAN meetings with its major partners launched in 1994 — remains the main forum in which political and security challenges in East Asia are addressed. The one-day meeting in a year — in the past it included a skit where all the foreign ministers let their hair down behind closed doors — conceals the hard work that their senior officials had put in preparing the gathering throughout the year.

Although it is a meeting of foreign ministers where everyone is expected to observe diplomatic protocol, the ARF changed its tone last year when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton irritated China in Hanoi. Declaring that a peaceful resolution of territorial disputes over the South China Sea was “in the national interests of the United States”, she called for a multilateral solution to the question.

China, which had been pushing to settle the disputes bilaterally with each of the four other claimants — Malaysia, the Philippines, Brunei and Vietnam — saw Clinton’s remarks as undue interference in its disputes with these other countries.

Until recently, the territorial disputes in the South China Sea had been lurking under the surface. ASEAN diplomats already warned in the 1990s that tensions over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea would be the next potential flashpoints in regional security.

Recent skirmishes between China and the Philippines, between China and Vietnam and the resulting growing tension in the entire region confirmed their fears.

The security and geopolitical landscape of Asia is changing with the rise of China and India and the relative decline of US power. Some old and new disputes are now coming to the surface that will create more tension in the region.

Entering its 45th year in existence, ASEAN has a new historical task.

As the main driver in the ARF and the EAS processes, ASEAN will be tasked to bring these countries to remain engaged in the search for solutions; at the very minimum prevent the escalation of tensions and likelihood of war.

The ARF may have been turned into a forum for a shouting match between the foreign ministers, but that is in keeping with the demands of the time and the growing security challenges in the region.

ASEAN does not have the military prowess required to police a region prone to wars and conflicts. It does, however, have the diplomatic skills and experience and a good track record to show for in navigating nations away from their conflicts to work for the common peace and prosperity in the region, first and foremost, by talking to one another.

Talk is cheap indeed; most of the time it seems to accomplish little. But we should be more worried when nations in conflict stop talking.

The writer, the senior editor of  The Jakarta Post, is a visiting  fellow at the East-West Center  in Washington.

{

Your Opinion Counts

Your thoughts matter - share your experiences, suggestions, and any issues you've encountered on The Jakarta Post. We're here to listen.

Enter at least 30 characters
0 / 30

Thank You

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your feedback.