`Challenges make ASEAN more relevant'

The Jakarta Post,  Tue, 03/10/2009 2:45 PM  

Southeast Asian leaders have reiterated their commitment to an integrated community at the 14th ASEAN Summit that concluded in the Thai resort town of Cha-Am two weeks ago. The summit saw the adoption of the bloc's security and socio-cultural community blueprints, which added to the 2007 economic blue print. Concerns have risen that ASEAN leaders will face challenges over their "ambitious ideas", owing to the differences in the levels of democracy and prosperity in their countries, and compounded by the global economic turmoil that has thrown even wealthier member states into recession. Dewi Fortuna Anwar, a renowned Indonesia researcher from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), spoke recently with The Jakarta Post's Lilian Budianto about the problems and challenges in forming the ASEAN community amid the global crisis. The following are excerpts from the conversation. 

Question: How do you see the relevancy of the ASEAN economic community and how it may progress amid the current economic turmoil, with some member states adopting unfavorable measures to protect their own markets? 

Answer: The current global crisis might interrupt the timeline of the ASEAN economic community. Under the economic community, trade liberalization will become an obligation. But on the other side, when every country faces economic difficulties, its leaders will instinctively protect their own markets, either within ASEAN or the bloc's traditional markets of Japan and Europe. That's why one of the provisions in the ASEAN economic community is a pledge against protectionism. So the commitment is one of the efforts to have members refrain from resorting to protectionism. 

The pledge might sound normative, but the fact they made that point is something of great significance. Because as you see, many people have asked Indonesia to protect its own market *because it is considered too liberal*, and this is against the backdrop of the ASEAN agenda to integrate the whole regional market. This will signal huge difficulties of integration aims ahead. However, the important thing is that leaders realized such a challenge and they made a call to each other to go against protectionism. 

During the ASEAN Summit, leaders were split over the idea of protectionism. Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said it was something normal. Thai PM Abhisit Vejjajiva has also called on Thais to buy local products on several occasions. What do you think? 

All countries will do that now. There will be some conflicts when leaders are faced with commitment to the ASEAN integrated community and at the same time trying to protect the domestic market. As long as it does not go against WTO rules, countries will find some way to protect their markets - through the national standards system, or by restricting entry points or importable products. It will happen and it will not help the integration process. 

The longer the crisis, the slower we are in implementing the ASEAN economic community. This might put us in a difficult situation because we do not want to see the collapse of our domestic market as the idea of the ASEAN community is prosperity for all. If it threatens losses for one country and gains for another, then there will be some sort of resistance to the ASEAN economic community. That's why we must seek balance between the regional market agenda and national competitiveness. The point is we have to avoid a trade war where one country closes down its market to others. 

This might lead the bloc into a spiraling trade war that will be a lose-lose situation for all. What all countries should do now is enhance the quality of local products to compete with imported ones. This can be a blessing in a disguise, because one of the weaknesses in Southeast Asian economies is they are too dependent on exports. When the economies of other countries do well, then they do well too, but they are very vulnerable to global demand. 

What about the security and socio-cultural blueprints? 

I don't think there will be much improvement in those areas. In the security sector, there could be some improvement, but not in politics. In security, we can develop an idea of cooperation to tackle security threats, most of them non-traditional threats. But it will be hard in politics, as you might see instead degradation in democracy within the ASEAN bloc. Many countries in ASEAN are undergoing democratic crises and deficits. 

Thailand is an example. We have seen Thailand grow as a successful democratic model, but after the military coup and the prolonged political crisis, the sustainability of the democracy system in ASEAN is put under question. Besides the Thai crisis, we have an untouchable monarchy in the bloc, the political woes in Myanmar, and human rights and the Rohingya *boatpeople* crisis. ASEAN's impotence in resolving these issues shows the ASEAN mechanism has yet to work well. Democracy consolidation has failed. 

Do you think ASEAN will be able to proceed better with economic cooperation, compared to security and socio-cultural cooperation? 

We have the parameter for success and failure for economic cooperation. The rise of intra-ASEAN trade can be measured from year to year, investment from ASEAN countries, the rate of people-to-people exchange and the number of skilled workers. But in politics and socio-cultural terms, it is more intangible. The various political systems in ASEAN make it harder to cooperate. 

But, I don't agree that ASEAN should only focus on economic cooperation. We have committed to building the ASEAN community based on economic, security and socio-cultural pillars and there must be some balance between them. 

The three pillars have to go together. If not, we will just become trading nations. 

A market is not a community. When you go shopping in a market, you do not build a community with sellers there. Markets don't create that kind of community. 

Why do think leaders still have to press ahead with political cooperations despite so many failures in bringing about changes in the bloc? 

We might say that ASEAN is a failure in many things, but that doesn't mean we should forget about it. The challenges are harder in politics and security because they involve high political issues with a great level of sensitivity. In the economy, we have some common goals, such as lowering tariffs and opening up the markets. But when it comes to politics, with goals of enhancing democracy, we might face challenges from countries with great political sensitivity. 

However, it has to be remembered that those are the challenges that make ASEAN relevant. If everything is good, we do not need ASEAN. Why do you need an organization? You create an organization because you have a problem. ASEAN was created in 1967 to cope with challenges belonging to that period; but as time went by, the challenges became different. In 1967, we did not talk about democracy, but in 2001-2009 up to the 21st century, human rights and democracy issues, including good governance and the environment, will become more important, and even if we do not have ASEAN, neighboring countries will have a forum where they can talk about these issues.