Reinventing ASEAN

1. There is now widespread recognition that ASEAN needs to be revitalized. Government ministers and officials have increasingly acknowledged that they must act or risk irrelevance. This recognition of potential irrelevance contrasts sharply with the high reputation that ASEAN had previously enjoyed. The Asian crisis that began in mid-1977 has been a key trigger in this change in perception. The severe impact of the crisis threw ASEAN member state into disarray and exposed their limits of co-operation in dealing with the financial contagion. Although some ASEAN member states were buoyed by sharp, V-shaped economic recovery in 1999-2000, the overall reputation of ASEAN did not improve much.
2. Moreover, even as the crisis abated, some continued to experience political and social instability, with Indonesia, the centre of gravity of the grouping by size and history, the worst hit. The worldwide economic slowdown in 2001, led by the downturn in the US market, will not assist the region. Instead, it exposes the fragility of the economic development policies that ASEAN member states have adopted, especially when, in contrast, China seemingly continues to prosper.

Asia's New Regionalism

1. Something significant is pulsing through Asia. Not for centuries has that region been so fluid, so open, so cosmopolitan. Never has communication been so inexpensive and widely available, nor transport so rapid and efficient. Cross-border business-old and new, legal and illegal-flourishes. Newly laid roads connect megacities with spanking new suburbs and chockablock shanties. Integrated production networks span far-flung manufacturing hubs. Sleepy ports lined with tumbledown warehouse are waking up, and airlines offer a starburst of new routes. City and local governments are setting up new offices to handle record numbers of tourists and entrepreneurs. Environmental, health and human rights groups are forming information networks and patchy cross-border coalitions. Sensing new prey, transnational gangs have stepped up their activity.
2. Nowhere is this regional pulse more palpable than in what I call Maritime Asia, the vast sweep of coastline and water connecting central and southern India, Southeast Asia, China, the Korean Peninsula, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. In maritime communities, integration is spontaneous and tangible. A visitor to Asia’s major ports and coastal communities is likely to jostle against people from all over the region: A Malaysian official, an Indian engineer, a Chinese tourist, a Japanese banker, a Filipino bar hostess, a Korean professor, and an Indonesian businessman, perhabs. Most of them carry cellular telephones equipped with the latest devices and talk on them frequently-often in English, the region’s lingua franca. The visitor’s day might include a dim sum lunch, a stroll along a waterfront packed with cargo ships, shopping trip to a mall packed with Asian products, a sushi dinner and a Bollywood film. Westerners, no longer stared at, are lost in the crowd.
3. This quickening to life is highly uneven. In Asia’s remote rice paddies and dry plains, in the highlands and hill country, in the more distant islands of the archipelagos, in countless villages and small towns, lies a slow-moving, more isolated less cosmopolitan Asia. Foreign visitors are rare. Nevertheless, in local markets one might find “ Hello Kitty “ dolls, American T-shirts made in China and pirated CDs featuring a Korean pop singer.
4. Meanwhile, Asian government officials are promoting a different version of integration. Motivated primarily by reasons of state, members of ASEAN 10 are the drivers of this new movement. They have spun a series of concentric organizational circles dedicated to closer integration and what they call “ community building “. This activity is the chief expression of Asia’s new regionalism.
5. The innermost circle is ASEAN itself. Founded in 1967 ASEAN was originally designed as an anticommunist organization. Since then it has transformed itself into a cooperative grouping with numerous committees and working groups. ASEAN leaders have pledged themselves to an ASEAN Community resting on three pillars : economic, security and sociocultural. The next circle is ASEAN +3-ASEAN plus Japan, China and South Korea. This grouping periodically heralds the formation of an East Asian Community as a long-term goal.

An APEC Trade Agenda ? The Political Economy of a Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific

The proposal for an Asia-Pacific-wide free trade agreement is one of the oldest ideas for promoting mutually beneficial regional cooperation dating back to the mid-1960s. In more recent times, the idea has found new support for two main reasons : as a plan B to the stumbling Doha Development Agenda ( DDA ) round of WTO negotiations, and as a solution to noodle bowl of bilateral agreement in the region.

Beyond Bilateralism : US-Japan Relations in the New Asia-Pacific

1. For most of the period since the signing of the San Francisco Peace Treaty in 1951, relations between Japan and the US were overwhelmingly characterized by bilateralism. Each country extended to the other special privileges that they did not extend to other countries. Moreover, the key economic, political, and security relationship between the two nations were primarily dyadic links between the two governments; little influances was allowed to non-governmental actors or other nations.
2. Starting in the mid-to late 1980s, however, and accelerating since then, these once unambiguously bilateral ties have become far more complex and consequently, ambiguous. Three forces account for the bulk of these changes :
(1) alterations in geopolitics,
(2) the enhanced role of private capital flows, and
(3) the rise in number and importance of multilateral organizations.
Bilateralism has by no means vanished completely, nor has it been replaced by some equally easy-to-label alternative. Nonetheless, relations between Japan and the US now manifest a panoply of new traits, directions and managerial complexity that have unquestionably reshaped the relationship.
3. Even where bilateral management continues to prevail – and we find this more in the security than in the economic or financial realms-elites from both countries must face more complicated choices and implications than their predecessors faced.

Regionalism in Southeast Asia - To Foster the Political Will

1. The definition of “ regionalism “ – and of correlatives like region, regionalist, regionalise and regionness – is not, however, uncontested, even if, in this case, it is less on account of political or ideological overtones or purposes and more on account varying approaches to comment and analysis. The concept are, however, increasingly being used or developed in the course of or as a basis of public action, not merely though primarily political and both practice and theory are increasingly place in the conflicted context of globalization.
2. A sense of region implies a sense of world. A region is part of the world. For some it may be the whole world. More usually, it is seen to be, as it is, part of the world, in which there are other regions variously conceived and constituted. Regions, regionalisation, and regional organizations are indeed both a product of and a reaction to world-wide changes, predominantly economic and political in character.
3. Regionalism and regionalisation emerge in Europe in part as a response to and defense against outside pressures but in part also as a means of modifying or mediating internal disequilibrium. Within a trans-state region one state is likely to be stronger than another. A regional structure both constrains it and gives it an opportunity. Its leadership may become more acceptable to others if its dominance is less apparent.
4. The political success of ASEAN began to contribute to its economic advance. Its activities-togther with those of the major powers – helped to change the perception of Southeast Asia : it was no longer a region of turmoil but one of development. In my view, S. Dhanabalan declared in 1983, the biggest contribution of ASEAN towards economic development has been the way we have presented to the rest of the world a picture of ASEAN cooperation and neighbourliness. That had created an image of ASEAN as an area of stability. None of the ASEAN countries would have developed economically if their political wrangling could not be resolved.

Towards PAX SINICA ? China's Rise and Transformation : Impacts and Implications

1. Succesful hosting of the 2008 Olympics and the first Spacewalk better heralded the return of China to the centre of the world. Yet other incidents during the same year-whether in the form of natural calamities, man-made food scares, or socio-political disturbances-have not failed to dampen the optimism that would have otherwise marked unequivocally the country’s year of success.Napoleon once suggested that China be allowed to sleep, “ for when she awakes, she will shake the world “ China has indeed shaken the world – not with her armies, but with her factories. Today the world’s most populous nation of 1.3 billion people is also the third largest economy in terms of GDP and a global investor with operations established in more than 60 countries, while absolute poverty has dropped to below 22 million, with incidence of poverty just around 2 pct.
2. The phenomena rise of China as an economic power as well as her heightened political and military clout that has been growing in tandem with this, inevitably brought forth both regionally and globally, increasing concern over whether she is posing a threat to regional stability and prosperity and if so, in what way. Despite also being viewed as a threat, China is more often regarded as an opportunity for her trade partners. Unlike the earlier economic “ miracles “ of East Asia, China has been following a liberal foreign investment regime in recent decades, opening its domestic markets and “ not building an export powerhouse behind a wall of protective tariffs “. The country’s rapid economic growth has generated great opportunities for large volumes of imports of both primary and manufactured goods from her regional partners.

ASEAN Connectivity

The idea of ASEAN Connectivity was first proposed bt Thai PM Abhisit Vejjajiva at the Opening Ceremony of the 42nd Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on July 2009 in Phuket. As the Chairman of ASEAN, PM Abhisit proposed that a “ Community of Connectivity “ should be one objectives of ASEAN Community 2015. It means that
- goods and peoples,
- investment and initiatives,
can travel obstacle-free throughout the region. A fully integrated ASEAN economy as a single market and production base must have such connectivity built into both its hardware and software. It is expected that through a well-connected Community, ASEAN can realize its full economic potentials as well as take maximum advantage of the strategic location linking the massive economies of South Asia on the West and Northeast Asia to the North.
This initiative was endorsed with the adoption of the ASEAN Leaders’ Statement on ASEAN Connectivity at the 15th ASEAN Summit held in Hua Hin on 24 Oct 2009. ASEAN Leaders mandated the creation of a High Level Task Force ( HLTF ) on ASEAN Connectivity to devise a Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity by the 17 ASEAN Summit 2010. The Master Plan is both a strategic document for achieving overall ASEAN Connectivity and a plan of action for immediate implementation for the period 2011-2015 to connect ASEAN through enhanced :
- physical infrastructure development ( physical connectivity ),
- effective institutional arrangement ( institutional connectivity ) and
- empowered people ( people-to-people connectivity ).
On 28 Oct 2010, ASEAN Leaders adopted the Ha Noi Declaration of the Adoption of the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity. In this Declaration, the ASEAN Leaders recognized that the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity will
- promote economic growth,
- narrow development gaps,
- ASEAN Integration and Community building process,
- enhance competitiveness of ASEAN,
- promote deeper social and cultural understanding as well as
- greater people mobility and connect its member states within the region and with the rest of the world.
The leaders also gave a task to Ministers, the ASEAN Connectivity Coordinating Committee and the National Coordinators, supported by the ASEAN Secretariat, to coordinate and oversee the implementation the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity and to report the ASEAN Leaders the progress of its implementation on a regular basis through the ASEAN Coordinating Council.
As such, “ connectivity “, according to the document of the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity, refers to the physical, institutional and people-to-people linkages that comprise the foundamental support and facilitative means to achieve the political-security, economic and socio-cultural pillars towards realizing the vision of an integrated ASEAN Community.
According to the document, the key element of ASEAN Connectivity include :
(1) physical connectivity ( i.e transport, energy and information and communication technology ) ;
(2) institutional connectivity ( i.e trade liberalization and facilitation, investment and services liberalization and facilitation, mutual recognition agreements/arrangements, regional transport agreements, cross-border procedures, capacity building programs );
(3) people-to-people connectivity (i.e education and culture as well as tourism ).
Among the main issues, in the ASEAN Connectivity are discrepancy and disconnectivity. First, there is a discrepancy in the progress of connectivity between the Wesyern Part of ASEAN, which is landmass in nature and the Eastern Part of ASEAN which is archipelago. Second, as it concerns maritime transport, connectivity between the Western Part of ASEAN and the Eastern Part of ASEAN is poor ( thus, this represents an issue of disconnectivity ). Third, the Eastern Part of ASEAN, which largely consists of the Eastern Part of Indonesia, represents the weakest link in the overall ASEAN Connectivity. Forth, pull factors are needed to speed up the process of connectivity building. These four issues must be addressed accordingly by ASEAN.
(quoted from ASEAN Connectivity in Indonesia Context – A Preliminary Study on Geopolitics of Hydropower and Maritime Transport – Centre of Policy Analysis and Development For Asia Pacific and African Regions, Policy Analysis and Development Agency, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Indonesia, 2011 ).