Can Asean move out of its comfort zone?

A Cambodian worker transports goods from a Thai border market in Sa Kaeo to Cambodia. The Asean Economic Community is nowhere near the definition of ‘a single market’. PATIPAT JANTHONG

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) is basking in activities marking its 50th year, but its golden anniversary raises the question of whether the group wields more clout externally rather than in its own backyard, and whether it can — or wants to — move out of its comfort zone in the next 50 years.

Doing so will require a lot of internal work by the 10 member states of an association that though proud of Asean’s centrality and place on the global diplomatic stage, remains very protective of national sovereignty and would be loathe to sacrifice it for the cause of regional integration.

So while Asean convenes strategic venues for the world’s most important multilateral fora each year — its external role — it has found consensus difficult to reach on internal issues like whether to put the Asean logo on the passports of its nationals.

What lies next for Asean as it transitions from a mainly political grouping to a community, a change that expands its activities to just about all aspects of policy?

“Asean’s 50th anniversary is confirmation that the Asean Community is irreversible,”

Asean Deputy Secretary-General AKP Mochtan said at the Reporting ASEAN media forum in Bangkok in February.

Indeed, but what Asean is marking is the start of its community-building, rather than its fruition.

“It will not be easy to find a common cause that can bring together the countries of Asean as effectively as the existential challenge that faced the original members during the Cold War,” Jakkrit Srivali, then head of the Asean department at the Thai Foreign Ministry, said at the same event. “But the renewal of Asean is already under way.”

Asean has achieved no small feat by existing for half a century. Created as a bulwark against communism in August 1967, it has been a major factor in regional stability. It later expanded to include countries that were on the other side of the ideological fence to group Southeast Asia’s 10 countries together.

Today, its heightened profile is such that if Asean were one economy, it would be the world’s seventh largest. Jakarta, where the 300-person Asean secretariat is based, is host to a growing number of permanent missions to Asean from its dialogue partners.

Asean has 10 dialogue partners, marking the 40th year of such ties with Canada and the European Union this year. Brazil, Mexico, Turkey and Kazakhstan are on the waiting list.

Asean hosts a menu of high-profile meetings each year, apart from its own leaders’ summits. There is the East Asia Summit, which brings the leaders of 18 countries, the Asean Regional Forum, and the Asean Defence Ministers Plus — all of which are investments in regional security that ensure that the communication lines remain open with China, the United States and Russia, among others.

But internally, Asean’s plate is more than full.

Worries simmer about the development gap between the older Asean members and the newer ones — Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Vietnam - which obviously undercuts genuine integration. These countries have until 2018 to put in place their commitments to the Asean Economic Community. Calls are being made for a review of Asean’s habits such as non-interference in its member states’ internal affairs, including by Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak when he criticised Myanmar’s handling of the situation in Rakhine state. While non-interference has served Asean well under its old environment, how far can it hold if Asean says it is now a community?

The regional grouping is sticking to its old familiar methods, but its community experiment throws up other uncomfortable questions for it to face.

Asean countries still fidget over discussing human rights issues, despite their inclusion in the Asean charter and Asean’s own rights declaration.

“Asean, as a community, is a duty bearer to human rights,” said Seree Nonthasoot, Thailand’s representative to the Asean Inter-governmental Commission on Human rights (AICHR).

“Human rights are a shared concern of Asean and Asean must address it. We put it up for nothing, if we do nothing [about it].”

Rights are inherently a regional concern, but like other issues are often discussed in isolation from economic or social issues, he adds. “Would you like to go live in a country where people can be disappeared easily?” Mr Seree asked, referring to Lao activist Sombat Somphone, whose 2012 disappearance remains unresolved.

Similarly, he said of the Rohingya: “But isn’t it about economic issues? Isn’t it a social welfare issue that leads to their being evicted from their homes?”.

For all of the talk around the Asean Economic Community (AEC), it looks very different from the usual definition of a “single market and production base”. A single market usually has no barriers to the internal movement of capital, good and labour, but the AEC is nowhere near that. Asean citizens cannot freely travel and work in the region. The freer movement for seven kinds of professionals affects only 1% of the labour force.

Asean has a way to go in intra-regional trade, a key indicator of integration. Its level of intra-regional trade stands at just 24%. While tariffs in Asean are at virtually zero, non-tariff barriers among countries have been hard to address.

The liberalisation of trade and foreign investment in Asean — today a key production base for global multinationals and manufacturing firms in East Asia — has made it more attractive to external parties.

“Investors, policymakers in other parts of the world view Asean as one group,” said economist Suthad Setboonsarng, a former trade representative for Thailand and former Asean deputy-secretary general who is now a board member of Banpu Plc. “They use the easier way of doing business for their own benefit.”

“How do we address the inequality issue, the allocation of benefits from economic growth?” he asked. “A major, major portion of the benefit from the economic growth in Asean accrues not to Asean but outside the Asean countries.”

As Asean’s role widens, concern is growing over the secretariat’s ability to handle this expansion, including the community’s ambitious blueprints.

“The demands placed on Asean have grown but this has not been matched by the resources which are stretched thin by the more than 1,000 meetings each year,” Mr Jakkrit said, adding that Asean’s attention is “torn among a multitude of competing priorities” externally and internally.

“You need something that is much more effective at the centre,” Mr Suthad said.

“Right now we don’t have that and that is one of the biggest weaknesses of Asean.”

Former secretaries-general have aired the same concern, saying the secretariat does not have the means to implement Asean’s decisions or hold states accountable to commitments.

Asean states had designed the secretary-general’s position, which rotates among member countries, to be low-key and rather powerless.

The Asean secretary-general has no direct role in making policies or decisions, and is not a spokesperson for Asean.

It may not be something Asean will change, or want to.

As the quip in Asean circles goes: “The Asean secretary-general is more of a secretary than a general”.

“For now, Asean has settled into a safe and rather comfortable zone, where process and ritual are given almost as much attention as the substance,” Mr Jakkrit said.

But he said “the streamlining and reform of the Asean secretariat, of Asean meetings, have increasingly become essential to Asean’s continuing relevance in the next 50 years.”

Johanna Son, who has followed Southeast Asian affairs for over two decades, is editor and founder of the Reporting ASEAN media programme.