Indonesia is a functioning democracy and making treaties is the purview not only of the government but also of the people through the parliament. Rizal Sukma, my colleague at CSIS, has argued how irrelevant this charter is and how helpless ASEAN has been in dealing with the tension between Thailand and Cambodia in the Preah Vihear temple issue.
More importantly for ASEAN is whether it really can get its act together in facing future challenges (global or regional), for instance, on the impact of the financial meltdown and the challenge of competing with China’s and India’s economic dynamism. It is also increasingly doubtful whether ASEAN will be able to take the lead in institution-building in the East Asia region.
ASEAN can only play this role if its members cooperate more closely. But unfortunately, the charter is limited in its reach and is not equipped to make ASEAN a credible option for taking a lead role in East Asian regional cooperation.
The East Asian region is facing big challenges, especially the rise of China and India. The most effective way to maintain peace, stability and economic dynamism is to establish a regional institution that could accommodate the three big powers — China, India and Japan — in a kind of concert of power that will be able to maintain future equilibrium in the region, together with the United States.
Efforts to develop East Asian cooperation and institution building are critical to the future of the region. While ASEAN has a good chance of supporting and even leading the process, lack of cohesion has become a limiting factor. That is why Indonesia should take the lead, in cooperation with several ASEAN members, Northeast Asia and India, to push the idea.
This also means that ASEAN will be maintained for good neighborhood relations in the future but will no longer be the cornerstone of Indonesia’s foreign policy. The cornerstone should obviously be centred on Indonesia’s national interest.
The regional architecture in East Asia and in the Asia-Pacific needs consolidation. APEC, for instance, should again concentrate on economic cooperation led by the economic ministers. The APEC Summit has become a diversion and has in practice become decoupled from the APEC agenda. APEC also cannot include strategic and security issues because there are two nonstate members (Taiwan and Hong Kong) while the Latin American members are not interested in East Asian strategic and security issues.
That is why the APEC Summit should be abolished and instead the idea of an East Asian one should be entertained. East Asia also should decide what they want to do with the two East Asian regional organizations: ASEAN Plus Three (APT) and EAS (East Asian Summit). Either the APT should be absorbed into the EAS or the division of labor between the two should be made very clear.
APT should be for functional cooperation including economic cooperation (which they have been doing for more than 10 years) and should be open to the other three members of the EAS, in areas where their involvement is relevant, while the EAS should be a forum for strategic dialogues for the region.
The ASEAN Regional Forum could be maintained for human security (or nontraditional security) cooperation, but to be credible must include defense ministers, have a non-ASEAN co-chair and a secretariat and become an action-oriented institution (not only a talkshop for confidence-building measures).
But above all there is a need for an East Asian institution as an overarching body for strategic dialogues and for hard traditional security cooperation. Here the United States and Russia should be invited. And it should not be a large group. Based on size, strategic importance and GDP as criteria, the countries to be considered would be Australia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Russia and the USA.
ASEAN should be included, represented by the chair and the secretary-general, as an associate member. This could become the future concert of power for East Asia (the G8 for East Asia).
While the EAS will be only for East Asian countries, this G8 for the region would include important strategic countries such as the United States and Russia.
Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has given a new impetus to the idea of shaping the regional architecture through regionwide discussions at the highest level. It is not likely to lead to a totally new architecture but it will be shaped by the consolidation of existing ones plus, hopefully, a new overarching structure (East Asia’s G8).
As always, Jusuf Wanandi’s ideas are constructive. Just two comments.
There may be no need for Indonesia to give up on ASEAN as the cornerstone of its foreign policy. Indonesia has the ability to forge an ASEAN consensus on most issues which is very close to its own interests. Indonesia’s weight in any emerging Asia Pacific concert of powers would be commensurately greater.
It is not necessary to talk of abolishing the APEC summit. It can be seen as the forerunner and foundation of a smaller meeting of heads of government as proposed by Jusuf. The membership of that summit would allow it to continue to set, informally, the strategic direction of APEC.
Finally, there is an interesting Lowy Institute Paper (#21) by Coral Bell which touches on some of these issues.
Andrew
Here, I have ideas to express in two points:
First, even if ASEAN Charter aims at making ASEAN to be a more rule-based regional organization, the implicit nature of relations among the member states is still enveloped by the principles of the ASEAN Way. Some examples are that of the recent military coup in Thailand, or even the democratization process in Burma. Based on the ASEAN Way, the military coup in overthrowing the democratically-elected government of Thailand, or human rights abuse in Burma, are realized to be the internal problems with which other ASEAN’s member states must not interfere.
Second, noteworthy is it that ASEAN has no single dominant authoritative institution, as seen in the case of APEC, which supplies continental regional integration in the manner of the EU. The excessive linkage of individual ASEAN member states with non-members, in this regard, might somewhat affect the realization of the Southeast Asian regionalism (ASEAN Economic Community).
Thanawat Pimoljinda