Jakarta leads Asean into new challenges
Kavi Chongkittavorn November 21, 2011 12:18 pm
Hats off to Indonesia's Asean chair for two major reasons.
First of all, Jakarta has opened up Asean to face global challenges and
attracted active participation from dialogue partners as never before seen in
the past four decades. Secondly, the outgoing chair has also pushed hard the
grouping to strengthen and implement their shared perceptions and joint actions
on pivotal issues related to political-security, economic and socio-cultural as
outlined under the newly announced Bali Concord III.
It was Jakarta's persistency to expand the existing leader-led strategic forum,
East Asia Summit (EAS), to include the US and Russia that eventually produced a
new synergy of consultations among the 18-member countries, coming from the
Asia-Pacific, beyond the East Asian region. With such a wide geographical
spreadfrom North America to Kamchetka Peninsula to the Asian continent and
Down Under as well as myriad of strategic interests involved, the EAS will
never be the same again. The non-Asean members are no longer passive as they
have come with their own strong agendas. For instance, after a long tussle, the
Asean leaders gave up the notion of Asean "centrality" and settled for a more
general term of Asean as "the driving force" in exchange of "equal" for "close"
partnership.
The US, which has been described as a hyperactive dialogue partner and
first-time EAS participant, has wisely seized the moment to send strong message
of its friends and foes that the world's superpower is now missile focused on
Asia. In the past week, President Barrack Obama and State Secretary Hilary
Clinton reiterated that the US will be a resident power in Asia. Indeed, the US
enthusiasm to engage Asean including the once-shunned Burma, surprised much of
the grouping's members which used to a wait-and-see Washington-based
policy-makers. Just a few months ago, Asean was not certain whether to grant
Burma the 2014 Asean chairmanship as requested. But Washington's positive views
over the reforms there have prompted Asean to dispatch Foreign Minister Marty
Natalegawa to visit Burma at the end of October, after repeated delays. After
his visit, the Burma's chair was a done deal.
Obama's decision to dispatch Clinton to Burma has in effect removed the last
barrier to fully cooperate with Asean without any discrimination as before.
With equal access to every Asean member and as a group, the US level playing
fields is now on par, if not bigger, than China or Japan within the grouping's
scheme of things. Obama's star-power presence at the EAS was further boost
because Russian President Dmitry Medvedev did not show up. He was represented
by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Since the EAS establishment in 2005, Russia
has been very eager to join the forum. Former President Vladimir Putin even
attended the first EAS as guest of the Malaysian host. It was a bit let-down as
Moscow could further use this forum to advance it strategic interest in
developing Siberia and the Far East. In fact, the future of Asean Connectivity
is now integrated with the EAS agenda, which can easily link up with Russia's
development plan.
As an insurance policy for the grouping's deepening engagement with major
powers, the EAS members will follow the 12-principle contained in the
"Declaration of the East Asia Summit on the principles of mutually beneficial
relations", approved at the weekend summit. Asean hopes that the non-binding
code of conductfollowed the success of Treaty of Amity and Cooperationwill
maintain regional peace and stability and help steer future EAS meetings that
would touch on sensitive strategic issues including maritime security. Besides
the principle of non-interference and renunciation the use of forces, the
principles include international law of the sea, UN Charter, TAC and other
recognized international laws. If the comfort level among the EAS members
increases over the years, these principles could form the basis of rules and
binding codes of conduct in emerging regional security architectures. Asean is
proud that its 35-year old regional codes of conduct have now been endorsed by
nearly 30 countries.
Jakarta's political experience in conflict resolutions and reconciliation over
East Timor and Aceh enables the chair to dwell more on efforts to build dispute
settlement mechanism within Asean. Indonesia was first to cite the
responsibility to protect principle to convince Burma to allow representatives
Asean and international organizations working with local authorities to assist
the humanitarian and relief operations in the post Cyclone Nargis in May 2008.
Jakarta has also strongly supported the establishment of Institute for Peace
and Reconciliation as mandated in the blueprint of the political and security
pillar.
As part of the efforts to promote political and security cooperation in Asean,
Indonesia has served as a facilitator for the ongoing conflict between Thailand
and Cambodia. The unusual role of Asean and its chair has been recognized by
the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice. Although the
conflicting parties have showed willingness to station the Indonesian
observation teams and complied with the council's and world court's
deliberations, progress on the ground so far proceeded at a snail pace.
However, Indonesia is likely to continue on this role after its chair expires
at the year end replacing by Cambodia.
One of shared perceptions today that could lead to a common perception and
policy in the future could be on the Asean policy on non-proliferation efforts
and nuclear disarmament. Burma's nuclear ambition and the link with North Korea
remain problematic, which needs to be clear up as soon as possible, especially
in lieu of fast improving US-Burma relations. After 16 years, the 1995
Southeast Asian Nuclear Free Zone or SEANWFZ has now transformed into a
regional security deterrent. Furthermore, Asean is getting close to complete
negotiations with all the five nuclear powers to allow them for accession to
the protocol of the SEANWFZ. Asean has started to discuss on broad approaches
on the peaceful use of nuclear energy and safety measures.
In another ten years in 2022 when Indonesia takes up the chair once again, a
better evaluation can be made whether the foundations laid at the weekend
summit have been fulfilled. With seven years into the Asean Community, Asean
members will be judged on their ability to formulate "common voices" on global
issues as articulated in the Bali Concord III, even though some of resilient
points were derived from Bali Concord II (2003). As the grouping's largest
member with consolidated democracy and its security preponderance, Asean can
expect the Bali Concord IV (2022) in the offing that further propels Asean to
take up common actions rather than verbal commitments.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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