The ASEAN declaration of 1967 exhorts the association to attain its economic, social and cultural aims through “joint endeavours” and “active collaboration and mutual assistance.” Regarding its political objective of regional peace and stability, however, the Declaration contains no equivalent exhortation. It speaks only of “respect for justice and the rule of law” and “adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter.” It makes no impassioned call for the ASEAN member states to take common political positions.

The restraint with which ASEAN’s founders expressed the political aim of their brainchild was understandable. They did not want their intentions to be misunderstood. They did not want ASEAN to be mistaken for a military grouping among political allies-as some of its predecessors had been.

Moreover, at the time of ASEAN’s conception, Southeast Asia was beset by instability aggravated by underdevelopment. The ASEAN pioneer states themselves were just beginning to learn to trust one another, while nursing the hangover of bitter disputes of recent years. The newborn ASEAN was, therefore, presented as a subregional grouping for economic, social and cultural cooperation. But security concerns and political purposes were never far from the ASEAN founders’ intentions.

As a key figure in ASEAN diplomacy, former Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas has pointed out, “The truth is that politics attended ASEAN at its birth. It was the convergence in political outlook among the five original members, their shared convictions on national priority objectives and on how best to secure these objectives in the evolving strategic environment of East Asia which impelled them to form ASEAN.”

ASEAN spent almost the whole first decade of its existence developing and refining the concepts that form the basis of its work and methods of cooperation. In those early years its ministerial and other meetings became occasions for fostering trust and goodwill, for developing the habit of working together informally and openly.

In the process ASEAN leaders realised that their countries could never attain national stability and socioeconomic development if Southeast Asia-afflicted with strife and Cold War rivalry-re-mained in political turmoil. The ASEAN member states strove for resilience, both individually as nations and collectively as a subregional grouping, for they knew the association would not amount to much if external powers regularly intervened in Southeast Asian affairs.

At the First ASEAN Summit in Bali in February 1976, the member countries signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, which spelled out the basic principles for their relations with one another and the conduct of the association’s programme for cooperation:

• Mutual respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity and national identity of all nations;
  
  
• The right of every state to lead its national existence free from external interference, subversion or coercion;
  
  
• Noninterference in the internal affairs of one another;
  
  
• Settlement of differences or disputes by peaceful means;
  
  
• Renunciation of the threat or use of force; and
  
  
• Effective cooperation among themselves.

The treaty envisaged these principles as the foundation of a strong Southeast Asian community. It stated that ASEAN political and security dialogue and cooperation should aim to promote regional peace and stability by enhancing regional resilience. And this resilience shall be achieved by cooperation in all fields among the member countries.

Following these principles and guidelines, Southeast Asia embarked on a journey towards regional solidarity that has been steady and sure. Through political dialogue and confidence building, ASEAN has prevented occasional bilateral tensions from escalating into confrontation among its members. And by 1999 the vision of an ASEAN including all the countries of Southeast Asia as members had been achieved.

Achievements in Political Collaboration

Since 1967 ASEAN has forged major political accords that have contributed greatly to re-gional peace and stability, and to its relations with other countries, regions and organisations. Foremost among these are:

Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality. On 27 November 1971 the foreign ministers of the then five ASEAN members met in Kuala Lumpur and signed the Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) Declaration. It commits all ASEAN members to “exert efforts to secure the recognition of and respect for Southeast Asia as a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality, free from any manner of interference by outside powers,” and to “make concerted efforts to broaden the areas of cooperation, which would contribute to their strength, solidarity and closer relationship.”

ZOPFAN recognises “the right of every state, large or small, to lead its national existence free from outside interference in its internal affairs as this interference will adversely affect its freedom, independence and integrity.”

Another five years passed before the next major development in political cooperation came about-the First ASEAN Summit in Bali, when the ASEAN leaders signed three major documents: the Declaration of ASEAN Concord, the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, and the Agreement Establishing the ASEAN Secretariat.

Declaration of ASEAN Concord. Departing from the more circumspect Bangkok Declaration, the Declaration of ASEAN Concord stated for the first time that the member countries would expand political cooperation. It also adopted principles for regional stability and a programme of action for political cooperation. The programme called for holding ASEAN summits among the heads of government; signing the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia; settling intraregional disputes “by peaceful means as soon as possible”; improving the ASEAN machinery to strengthen political cooperation; studying how to develop judicial cooperation including the possibility of an ASEAN extradition treaty; and strengthening political solidarity by promoting the harmonisation of views, coordinating positions and, where possible and desirable, taking common action.

Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) in Southeast Asia. TAC raised the provisions of the Kuala Lumpur Declaration to the level of a treaty to which other Southeast Asian countries could accede and with which the nonregional countries could associate themselves. The treaty enshrines the following principles: mutual respect for one another’s sovereignty; noninterference in internal affairs; the peaceful settlement of intraregional disputes; and effective cooperation.

The treaty also provides for a code of conduct for the peaceful settlement of disputes. And it mandates the establishment of a high council made up of ministerial representatives from the parties as a dispute-settlement mechanism.

To this day, TAC remains the only indigenous regional diplomatic instrument providing a mechanism and processes for the peaceful settlement of disputes.

Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone. At the ASEAN Summit in Bangkok on 15 December 1995, the leaders of all the ten Southeast ASEAN countries signed the Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone (SEANWFZ). As a key component of ZOPFAN, the SEANWFZ treaty ex-presses ASEAN’s determination to contribute to-wards general and complete nuclear disarmament and the promotion of international peace and security. It also aims to protect the region from environmental pollution and the hazards posed by radio-active waste and other toxic materials.

The SEANWFZ treaty came into force on 27 March 1997. ASEAN is now negotiating with the five nuclear-weapon states on the terms of their accession to the protocol which lays down their commitments under the treaty.

ASEAN has put in place the SEANWFZ Commission and the Executive Committee of the commission to oversee implementation of the treaty’s provisions and ensure compliance with them. The association adopted procedural and financial rules governing the work of the treaty bodies at the seco0nd meeting of the SEANWFZ Commission in Bangkok in July 2000.

Settlement of the Cambodian Conflict. One of the most important chapters in the history of ASEAN diplomacy took place during the Cambodian conflict. The ASEAN-sponsored resolutions at the UN General Assembly, which called for a durable and comprehensive political settlement in Cambodia, received consistent support from the international community.

With Indonesia as interlocutor, ASEAN maintained its dialogue with all parties to the conflict. This eventually led to the Jakarta Informal Meetings at which the four Cambodian factions discussed peace and national reconciliation.

The process proved to be protracted, requiring the help of many states and the United Nations. It extended to the early 1990s, culminating in the 19-nation Paris Conference on Cambodia, which was chaired by France and Indonesia.

On 23 October 1991 the Paris Conference on Cambodia produced the Comprehensive Political Settlement of the Cambodian Conflict. This settlement paved the way for the formation of the Cambodian Supreme National Council, in which four factions participated, and the holding of elections supervised by the United Nations Tran-sitional Authority on Cambodia.

ASEAN 10. Nineteen ninety-nine will be re-membered as the year when the vision of ASEAN’s founders to build an association comprising all the Southeast Asian countries was fully realised. The admission of Cambodia to ASEAN on 30 April 1999 in Ha Noi completed the association’s efforts towards regional cohesion, 32 years after the original five members-Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Thailand-first got together.

Insular and peninsular Southeast Asia and all of mainland Southeast Asia are now joined in one association. The region is no longer divided between ASEAN and non-ASEAN, between mainland and maritime Southeast Asia.

The Dialogue System

At the Second Summit in Kuala Lumpur the ASEAN heads of government agreed that the association’s economic relations with other countries or groups of countries needed to be expanded and intensified.

On that occasion, the ASEAN heads of government met with the Prime Ministers of Australia, Japan and New Zealand, the first time that they had held consultations as a group with the leaders of non-ASEAN countries.

The next year, the first Postministerial Conference took place immediately after the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting. This was a gathering among ASEAN and its dialogue partners, which were then Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, New Zealand and the United States.

Every year since then, the foreign ministers of dialogue countries have met at these postministerial conferences with their ASEAN counterparts. Between these conferences, dialogues are held at various levels and wide-ranging projects are undertaken. These relationships have become models for mutually beneficial relations between North and South as well as for South-South cooperation.

Four more countries have since joined the ASEAN dialogue system: China (1996), India (1996), the Republic of Korea (1991) and Russia (1996). The United Nations Development Programme (1977) is the only dialogue partner that is not a sovereign state.

ASEAN Regional Forum

It was only a matter of time before ASEAN’s regular interaction on economic cooperation with states and multilateral agencies outside Southeast Asia would evolve to include other concerns-primarily regional security.

At the 1992 Singapore Summit, the ASEAN leaders declared that “ASEAN shall move towards a higher plane of political and economic cooperation to secure regional peace and prosperity.”

By this time, the end of the Cold War had altered the configuration of international relations in East Asia. The new environment presented historic opportunities for the relaxation of tensions in the region through multilateral consultations, confidence building, and eventually the prevention of conflict. Thus, in 1994, ASEAN and its dialogue partners decided to create the ASEAN Regional Forum for this purpose. Initially, Forum participants included the ASEAN members, the other Southeast Asian states that were not yet ASEAN members, ASEAN’s then seven dialogue partners, Papua New Guinea, an ASEAN observer, and China and Russia, then still “consultative partners” of ASEAN. India became a participant on becoming a dialogue partner in 1996. Mongolia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea were admitted in 1999 and 2000.

As a major venue for carrying out ASEAN’s objectives of regional harmony and stability, ARF adopted two main objectives: first, to foster constructive dialogue and consultation on political and security issues of common interest and concern and, second, to contribute to efforts towards confidence building and preventive diplomacy in the Asia-Pacific region.

At the Twenty-seventh ASEAN Ministerial Meeting in 1994, the Foreign Ministers agreed: “ARF could become an effective consultative Asia-Pacific Forum for promoting open dialogue on political and security cooperation in the region. In this context, ASEAN should work with its ARF partners to bring about a more predictable and constructive pattern of relations in the Asia Pacific.”

In July 1996 ARF adopted the following criteria for participation:

• Commitment. All new participants, as sovereign states, must subscribe to the key goals of ARF and work cooperatively to help achieve them. Before their admission, all new participants should agree to abide by the decisions and statements already made by ARF. All ASEAN members are automatically ARF participants.
  
  
• Relevance. A state should be admitted only if it can be shown that it has an impact on the peace and security of the “geographic footprint” of key ARF activities (i.e. Northeast and Southeast Asia and Oceania).
  
  
• Gradual expansion. To ensure the effectiveness of ARF, efforts are made to control the number of participants to a manageable level.
  
  
• Consultations. All applications for participation should be submitted to the ARF chairman, who will consult all the other ARF participants and ascertain whether a consensus exists for admitting the applicant. Actual decisions on participation would be approved by the ASEAN ministers.

Although ARF is relatively new, it has become an invaluable contributor to the maintenance of harmony and stability in the Asia-Pacific region. Its work is complemented by a nonofficial “Track Two” process led by nongovernment institutes.

Since its inaugural meeting in Bangkok in July 1994, ARF has taken an evolutionary approach extended over three broad stages: the promotion of confidence building among participants; the development of preventive diplomacy; and the elaboration of approaches to conflicts. This approach enables ARF participants to deal constructively with political and security issues that bear on regional peace and stability, including new issues that have emerged as a result of globalisation.

Recent Issues and Concerns

It is in ASEAN’s ability and readiness to resolve political differences affecting its members and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region that the association’s commitment to political co-operation is put to the test. More often than not, that commitment has been affirmed and the ASEAN approach to solving potentially explosive issues vindicated.

These issues include territorial and jurisdictional disputes in the South China Sea; self-determination for East Timor; nuclear proliferation in Northeast Asia and South Asia; weapons of mass destruction; and the impact of globalisation.

South China Sea. Like many other parts of the world, Southeast Asia faces territorial disputes among its members and nearby states. In these disputes ASEAN has consistently pursued a policy of cooperation in seeking the peaceful settlement of differences.

In 1992, recognising that any conflict in the South China Sea could directly affect peace and stability in the region, ASEAN issued a declaration “urging all parties concerned to exercise restraint in order to create a positive climate for the eventual resolution of all disputes.” ASEAN further “emphasised the necessity to resolve all sovereignty and jurisdictional issues about the South China Sea by peaceful means, without resort to force.”

The Manila Declaration of 1992, which proposed a modus vivendi in the South China Sea, represents one of the most remarkable demonstrations of political solidarity among ASEAN members on strategic issues of common concern.

On the suggestion of ASEAN, ASEAN and China have been working on a Code of Conduct to govern state behaviour in the South China Sea.

The ASEAN-China Senior Officials’ Consultations Working Group on the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea met four times this year to negotiate a working draft code of conduct covering principles and norms of state-to-state relations, peaceful settlement of disputes and cooperation.

East Timor. ASEAN supported the implementation of the agreement between Indonesia and Portugal on the question of East Timor and the 5 May 1999 agreements between the United Nations and the Indonesian and Portuguese governments about the modalities for the popular consultations of the East Timorese. The consultations were held on 30 August 1999.

As violence rocked the territory following the referendum, the ASEAN leaders who were in Auckland for the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meet-ing gathered to address the problem. Some of them agreed to contribute, at great expense, to the International Force for East Timor, which was formed upon Indonesia’s invitation. The UN Transitional Administration in East Timor (UNTAET) was subsequently set up, with a Filipino general taking over the command of the peacekeeping force. A Thai general has since succeeded him.

Other ASEAN members have been extending humanitarian and other forms of assistance to East Timor.

ASEAN has called on the international community to help East Timor achieve peace, stability and prosperity during its transition to full independence, which would contribute to the stability of Southeast Asia.

Following the separation of East Timor from Indonesia, ASEAN has declared its position that a united, democratic and economically prosperous Indonesia is basic to the maintenance of regional security. In this context, the association emphasised its support for Indonesia’s territorial integrity.

Northeast Asia. At the Seventh ASEAN Regional Forum in July 2000, the participation for the first time of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in the ARF process was welcomed-a significant step in the rapid evolution of the situation on the Korean Peninsula and thus in the security environment of the Asia-Pacific region. North Korea’s ARF membership provides additional opportunities for dialogue and exchanges between North Korea and those ARF countries with key roles in the Korean situation.

ASEAN expressed support for the historic summit between the North and South Korean leaders, held in Pyongyang on 13-15 June 2000. It also commended the 15 June North-South Joint Declaration, the first agreement signed at the highest level since the division of the Korean Peninsula in 1945.

Challenges of globalisation. The Seventh ASEAN Regional Forum observed that although the security outlook for the region remains positive, uncertainties and challenges-particularly those posed by globalisation-would increasingly require ARF’s attention.

The Seventh ARF also considered the economic, social and human components of security and the need to promote regional cooperation in dealing with regional security issues. It discussed both the positive effects and the repercussions of globalisation, including greater economic interdependence among nations and the multiplication of security threats like transnational crime. In responding to globalisation, ARF felt it necessary for nations to strengthen their individual and collective capacities to meet the challenges affecting their common security.

ARF has reaffirmed the need for Southeast Asian countries to continue efforts, through dialogue and cooperation at national and international levels, in dealing with the economic, social and political impacts of globalisation so as to ensure sustained economic and social development.

Enlightened Regionalism

ASEAN is widely recognised in the international community as an exemplar of enlightened re-gionalism. But what makes up the nature and measure of its achievements?

It is remarkable that ASEAN has survived for more than three decades because, at the time of its birth, many political observers had predicted that, like previous attempts at regional organisation, it would soon wither in the blast of the complex and hostile regional situation.

Given the wide divergence of views among its founding members, besides the differences in their political and economic systems, ASEAN at the beginning offered little cause for optimism that it would ever attain its goal of regional cooperation. The Southeast Asian security situation was so grim during ASEAN’s early years that the international media often likened the region to the Balkans. Foreign Minister S. Jayakumar of Singapore recalls that the Western press then described the countries in the region as forming a row of dominoes, which were about to fall on one another.

Three decades later, the situation is vastly different. Despite pockets of instability and economic difficulty, the countries of Southeast Asia now make up one of the most stable and most prosperous regions in the developing world.

ASEAN has proved its critics wrong. It is now a vibrant reality, a subregional grouping recognised not only in its own region but also in the world as one of the most successful regional cooperative schemes.

A former ASEAN secretary-general, Narciso G. Reyes of the Philippines, once suggested that to really measure the association’s worth, one should ask what could have happened to South-east Asia without ASEAN. “Southeast Asia minus ASEAN,” Reyes said, “equals greater political instability, more widespread economic deterioration and, almost surely, the ascendancy of expansionist forces that thrive on the weakness, isolation and disunity of others.”

ASEAN’s achievements, however, do not just end in preventing regional disaster. In the political and security sphere, ASEAN has transformed itself from a small subregional organisation into a major voice for peace, justice and moderation in the Asia-Pacific and world affairs. In its 33-year history, ASEAN has maintained peace and stability among its member countries despite territorial disputes and other issues among them. It is today the only subregional organisation in Asia that provides a political forum where Asian countries and the world powers can discuss and consider problems about security, political issues and military concerns.

The relative peace, security and stability that ASEAN has helped maintain in Southeast Asia, as well as in the Asia-Pacific region, have been good for development. They have created a political environment where rapid and sustained economic growth has become possible. Economic development in turn has brought about social progress and human development.

Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Haji Ahmad Badawi of Malaysia points out: “ASEAN has been successful because its members have a very strong commitment to cooperation. Cooperation for the benefit of all and cooperation for stability and peace of the region. This is a very important hallmark of ASEAN.”

ASEAN, he said, also has “a very strong commitment to pragmatism.” Ideology has never been a problem to ASEAN. It has not allowed theoretical political differences to interfere in its efforts to cooperate for the common good. ASEAN’s leaders and ministers never tire of seeking consensus. They work hard to seek it on issues and programmes that the association develops and carries out.

ASEAN has come to realise that periods of rapid social and economic progress are often accompanied by basic shifts in power relations among states. If not managed well, such realignments could lead to conflict. At the same time, increased economic globalisation, accompanied by structural adjustments of national economies, could create challenges to social order.

With its rapid economic development, ASEAN also faces some issues of resource conservation, including environmental protection. Greater mobility of people, goods and capital also demands more sophisticated management of flows across borders and closer collaboration among ASEAN members. Southeast Asia’s leaders are convinced that ASEAN must continue to deal with all these concerns.

It helps that the nations of the Asia-Pacific region appreciate their prosperity and realise that tensions and armed conflict make bad economics. It helps that the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation and the recent Asia-Europe Meeting processes-in both of which ASEAN is the core element-are effectively promoting a more constructive and cooperative approach to international relations in the region.

The establishment of ARF also represented a breakthrough in the region’s turbulent history and signified the opening of a new chapter of peace, stability and cooperation for Southeast Asia.

Most important, the expansion of ASEAN to include all ten countries of Southeast Asia represents a watershed for the organisation as well as a new challenge. “It shall pave the way for a new synergy, maximising the cooperation and potential for growth of the entire region,” Viet Nam’s former Foreign Minister and now Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Manh Cam said in 1999. But he cautioned that “[in] the face of a Greater ASEAN, which comprises countries at different levels of economic and technological development and which have different cultures and historical backgrounds, a need emerges on how to keep those differences from slowing down ASEAN’s growth and from creating difficulties for developing countries.”

Outlook

Realising the vision of ASEAN’s founding fathers of an association of all Southeast Asian countries is thus hardly the end of ASEAN history. It is rather a call for a renewed commitment to broader regional solidarity among the peoples of Southeast Asia.

ASEAN has learned to draw strength from unity not only among governments but also among its diverse peoples. “The ASEAN experience and the ASEAN process must reach out to all spectra of our societies,” said former Foreign Minister Prachaub Chaiyasan of Thailand in 1997. “Through ASEAN this region will become a grassroots-supported and close-knit community bound together not only by common interests but by shared values, identity and aspirations among our peoples.”

ASEAN faces the future with confidence. Its strong foundation and remarkable achievements will serve Southeast Asia well as it pursues higher goals in the new millennium.

ASEAN’s leaders have reaffirmed that co-operative peace and shared prosperity should be the association’s basic goals. Towards these goals ASEAN shall remain a driving force in building a more predictable and constructive pattern of relationships among nations in the Asia-Pacific region.

ASEAN will move towards greater economic integration, emphasising sustainable and equitable growth. ASEAN will nourish a caring and cohesive Southeast Asian community, whose strength lies in fostering a common regional identity and a shared vision of the future.