THE ASSOCIATION
OF SOUTHEAST ASIAN NATIONS

The founders of the association of southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) envisioned it as eventually bringing together all the countries of Southeast Asia and getting them to cooperate in securing the region’s peace, stability and development. At the time the region was in tumult; several countries were struggling for national survival or independence. Thus, only five countries-Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand-signed the ASEAN Declaration of 8 August 1967.

Thirty-two years later-on 30 April 1999-ASEAN encompassed all ten countries of Southeast Asia by admitting Cambodia. (Brunei Darussalam had been admitted in 1984, Viet Nam in 1995, and Laos and Myanmar in 1997). Not only has the association achieved the inclusion of all of Southeast Asia within its fold, a goal that it had set for itself at its birth. It has also evolved into one of the most influential regional associations in the world.

As the 21st century dawns, ASEAN is embracing a new vision of itself as “a concert of Southeast Asian nations, living in peace, stability and prosperity, bonded together in partnership in dynamic development and in a community of caring societies.”

ASEAN’s success is all the more remarkable because it began at a time of poverty and conflict, and because as recently as two years ago, the re-gion was deep in financial crisis. The crisis, which began in July 1997, threatened to reverse the region’s economic and social gains of two de-cades. That the ASEAN econo-mies have bounced back after two years of crisis vividly shows their fundamental strength and resilience.

Today the ASEAN region stretches across three time zones and incorporates a key part of Asia’s continental landmass and several archipelagos. Economically, it belongs to the developing world, but some of its member countries have joined the world’s top 20 most competitive economies. Its population of about 500 million constitutes a huge, increasingly middle-class market, half the size of China’s. One of every ten persons in the world today is a Southeast Asian.

Besides its economic importance and the natural resources its marine territories are believed to hold, Southeast Asia is also of global strategic importance. It is the bridge between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It straddles some of the busiest sea-lanes in the world. The oil tankers and freighters that pass daily through these sea-lanes buttress Japan’s status as an industrial power.

 

ASEAN Milestones

The history of ASEAN may be told as a series of important events or milestones, which reflect the steady growth of the association, the expansion of its agenda, and the decisions it has taken that have veritably changed the history of Southeast Asia. From a regional grouping that initially had to define itself by what it was not-a regional association that was not a military alliance-ASEAN had become at the end of the 20th century a dynamic community of nations.

ASEAN’s milestones are many, but a number of them stand out in its 33-year history:

At the time of its founding, many predicted that ASEAN would not last long, because many factors were going against it, not least the simmering disputes between member countries. But, in the event, ASEAN’s consensus-building approach to problems enabled the association to move forward.

Each member learned to recognise its stake in the viability of the association. Each recognised the wisdom of ASEAN’s not being a supranational government that has authority over its individual members. Each member exercises full sovereignty. This is why ASEAN decisions are reached either unanimously or consensually. In a broad consensus, one or two members may not fully agree with a proposal but will not object to its being carried out.


Political and Security Cooperation

Although it was initially muted on ASEAN’s agenda, political and security cooperation was an important goal of the member states from the beginning. Some of the most important accords adopted by ASEAN concern political and security issues, such as the 1971 declaration designating Southeast Asia as a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN), the Treaty of Amity and Coopera-tion in Southeast Asia and the Declaration of ASEAN Concord in 1976, and the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone Treaty of 1995. With the establishment of the ASEAN Regional Forum, ASEAN created a major consultation process and confidence-building mechanism for peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region.

In aiming to become a “concert of nations” in the new century, ASEAN does not mean to transform itself into a political union under any form of central supranational authority. Each ASEAN country will continue to preserve its national government and identity in accordance with the ideals and aspirations of its people. However, all ASEAN members are legally bound by the code of conduct embodied in the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, among other agreements. Neither the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation nor any other agreement, however, requires ASEAN members to change their political systems into any specific homogenised system. ASEAN has never assigned itself the mission of converting its members to a uniform political set-up. Unlike the European Union, ASEAN did not set any political criterion for its prospective members to fulfil before admission.

Differences in political systems do not hinder the strengthening of ASEAN unity and solidarity. On the contrary, ASEAN sees the diversity in its membership as a source of strength and inspiration for fostering a strong sense of community and regional solidarity. All ASEAN members willingly agree to share the responsibility of strengthening peace and stability in Southeast Asia.

At the 1992 Singapore Summit-the first meeting of ASEAN leaders after the end of the Cold War-ASEAN decided to promote external dialogue on enhancing security in the region. This policy direction paved the way for the establishment of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1994. ASEAN envisaged a multilateral consultative forum aimed at building confidence among the countries with security interests in East Asia.

Besides the ten ASEAN countries, ARF’s membership includes the ten dialogue partners of ASEAN (Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Russia and the United States), Papua New Guinea, Mongolia and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, which participated in ARF for the first time on 27 July 2000.


Economic Cooperation

ASEAN’s programme for economic cooperation has evolved since its founding in 1967. Initially, economic cooperation dealt with programmes for joint ventures and complementation schemes among ASEAN governments or companies, such as the 1976 ASEAN Industrial Projects plan, the 1981 ASEAN Industrial Complementation scheme, and the 1983 ASEAN Industrial Joint-Ventures scheme. By the eighties and nineties, however, as countries all over the world began to dismantle economic barriers, ASEAN countries realised that the best way for them to cooperate for their development in the era of globalisation would be to open up their economies to one another, and eventually to integrate them.

The most important move towards this new model was made at the Fourth ASEAN Summit in 1992, at which member countries agreed to create the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA). A free-trade area-a market of close to half a billion people-would allow corporations in ASEAN to take advantage of economies of scale. These companies would also have access to the best prices for the raw materials they require, even as competition among them stimulates their productivity and efficiency. An integrated ASEAN economy would thus be a potent attraction for investors from outside the region who prefer large, integrated and efficient markets to small, fragmented and inefficient ones.

Trade. In September 1994 the ASEAN member countries agreed to speed up the establishment of AFTA by reducing the initial period of 15 years to 10. The ultimate objective of AFTA is to increase ASEAN’s competitive edge as a production base geared for the world market. A critical step in this direction is the liberalisation of trade in the region by eliminating intraregional tariffs and nontariff barriers. Liberalisation will result in making ASEAN’s manufacturing industries more efficient and more competitive in the global market. At the same time, consumers will be encouraged to source goods from other efficient producers in ASEAN, thus expanding intra-ASEAN trade. As the cost competitiveness of manufacturing industries in ASEAN improves and the market grows larger, investors can enjoy economies of scale and production. In this way ASEAN hopes to attract more direct foreign investments into the region. Investments will in turn stimulate the growth of supporting industries.

Industrial development. In the seventies, joint ventures had been the thrust of ASEAN’s cooperation programmes. In 1997 ASEAN agreed to replace these programmes-such as the Industrial Joint Venture and the Brand-to-Brand Complementation schemes-with the ASEAN Industrial Cooperation scheme (AICO), which uses the AFTA framework, particularly its Common Effective Preferential Tariff. Under an AICO arrangement, open to manufacturing enterprises, companies operating in at least two ASEAN countries enter into a strategic alliance, the products traded between them given the full AFTA treatment right away. Lower tariffs would greatly reduce production costs. The incentives for companies participating in an AICO scheme are eco-nomies of scale, reduction in production costs, and more efficient division of labour and industrial resources.

Services. Wishing to set up a liberal trading framework for trade in services to complement the liberalisation of trade, ASEAN has adopted a Framework Agreement on Services. The agreement seeks to integrate the ASEAN market for services by eliminating restrictions on trade in services among member countries. This would involve liberalising trade in services beyond the commitments undertaken by member countries under the General Agreement on Trade in Services. The final goal of the Framework Agreement is to realise a free-trade area in services.

Infrastructure. For ASEAN, economic integration also means binding its member countries through energy, transport and communications infrastructure. This challenge is tough because the region is geographically diverse and its economies are at different levels of development. And funding is a big problem. ASEAN has three long-term flagship projects for integrating the region’s infrastructure: the ASEAN Power Grid, the Trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline Network, the ASEAN High-way Network and the Singapore-Kunming Rail Link. In telecommunications, ASEAN is working on broadband interconnectivity to ensure the seamless roaming of telecommunications services.

e-Commerce. At the ASEAN informal summit in November 1999, the ASEAN leaders held an unprecedented dialogue with private-sector leaders of information technology to move the region into the information age. During this dialogue, the association created the e-ASEAN Task Force, a high-level advisory body that would devise a broad and comprehensive action plan for developing an ASEAN e-space. The Task Force will guide the building of core competencies within ASEAN to compete in the global information economy. The e-ASEAN Task Force comprises representatives from the private and public sectors. It recommends policies and projects for dev-eloping the information infrastructure in Southeast Asia and for closing the digital divide between the advanced economies and ASEAN economies. Its draft of an e-ASEAN framework agreement, already endorsed by the ASEAN Economic Min-isters, will be signed by the ASEAN leaders in Sing-apore on 24 November 2000.

Food, agriculture and forestry. Measures have also been taken to promote production and trade in agriculture and forestry products, given that these sectors are still significant to many ASEAN eco-nomies. A Ministerial Under-standing on ASEAN Coopera-tion on Food, Agriculture and Forestry will provide a framework for sectoral cooperation in these areas. A Memorandum of Understanding on ASEAN Co-operation on and Joint Approaches to Agricul-ture and Forest Products Promotion Scheme has been designed to improve the competitiveness of ASEAN agriculture and forest products. The ASEAN Food Security Reserve is being reviewed, to create a more dynamic food security arrangement to improve intra-ASEAN trade and to promote food production according to the principle of comparative advantage.


Functional Cooperation

The Second ASEAN Summit, held in Kuala Lumpur in 1977, called for expanding cooperation on human resource development; integrating women and youth in human resource development; eliminating poverty, disease and illiteracy; integrating population with rural development policies; providing productive jobs for low-in-come groups, especially in the rural areas; and taking concerted action to curb the abuse and traffic in narcotics and drugs. The ASEAN leaders officially call cooperation in these fields “functional cooperation.”

Environment. ASEAN sees environmental protection and sustainable management of natural resources as integral to long-term economic growth and the development of the region. The ASEAN member countries have stated their environmental commitments in the Ha Noi Plan of Action and, more explicitly, through the Strategic Plan of Action on Environment for 1999-2004. The action plan deals with the prevention, mitigation and monitoring of land and forest fires and transboundary haze; conservation of natural resources and biodiversity; protection of marine and coastal environment; the implementation of multilateral environmental agreements; and the promotion of environmental awareness, information and education.

Social development. ASEAN pursues cooperation on social development through the Commit-tee on Social Development. Established in 1978, the committee recommends policies and programmes for regional cooperation on health, education, labour, women, children and youth, and disaster management.

After the financial crisis hit East and Southeast Asia in 1997, ASEAN directed its social development programme towards building safety nets for the most vulnerable groups. These are wageworkers who lost their jobs as factories closed down, the rural poor who eke a meager living from the land, women burdened with too many children, children and the youth who could not go to school, and the elderly whose relatives are too poor to care for them properly.

Science and technology. The development of science and technology in Southeast Asia is considered a major activity in ASEAN cooperation because of its pivotal role in economic modernisation. Through the years ASEAN has pursued and carried out various projects in line with this objective.

Most of the projects are done in collaboration with dialogue partners, which provide technical expertise and financial assistance. The major donors are Australia, Canada, the European Union, India, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea.

Culture and information. Cultural cooperation has been high on ASEAN’s agenda from the start because its founders believed that greater cultural understanding among the Southeast Asian nations would be essential to building a sense of regional community. Cooperation on culture and information covers the arts, cultural heritage, information and the mass media. The projects and activities involve not only government officials but also artists, writers, journalists and academicians.

Transnational crime. ASEAN cooperation on crime dates from the 1976 Declaration of ASEAN Concord, which called for intensified cooperation among member countries and with international bodies to prevent narcotics abuse and stop trafficking in illegal drugs. Starting in 1996, however, ASEAN increasingly turned its attention to a more diversified list of organised crimes that transcend national boundaries, such as terrorism, arms smuggling, money laundering, trafficking in women and children, piracy and new types of drug abuse and trafficking. At the Second Informal Summit of Leaders in 1997 in Kuala Lumpur, the association dealt explicitly with these newer forms of trans-national crime and resolved to take firm measures against them. ASEAN contemplates a drug-free Southeast Asia by the year 2010.


External Relations

ASEAN’s commitment to develop its external relations was enunciated at the first meeting of the ASEAN heads of government in 1976, which “expressed ASEAN’s readiness to develop fruitful relations and mutually beneficial cooperation with other countries in the region.” This policy was upheld at the second summit, in 1977, when the ASEAN heads of government agreed that economic cooperation with other countries or groups of countries should be further intensified and expanded.

As a first step, ASEAN granted dialogue-partner status to its major trading partners-Australia, Canada, Japan, the European Union, New Zealand and the United States-and the United Nations Development Programme. In the nineties ASEAN expanded its dialogue relations to include the Republic of Korea, India, China and Russia. It granted Pakistan sectoral dialogue partnership in 1997. ASEAN has also forged ties with international organisations and regional and subregional organisations such as UNESCO, the Asian Dev-elopment Bank, South Pacific Forum, Gulf Cooperation Council, South Asian Associations for Regional Cooperation, South African Dev-elopment Cooperation, the Economic Coopera-tion Organisation and the Andean Community.

Most ASEAN member countries have been at the core of the Asia-Pacific Economic Coopera-tion, the Asia-Europe Meeting and the East Asia-Latin America Forum, in which they actively participate.

ASEAN’s dialogue relations have been shaped by domestic, regional and global factors. In their early stages, the primary focus of ASEAN’s external relations was to seek technical assistance to propel the economic development of member countries. With the rapid economic growth of ASEAN in the eighties and nineties, the nature of dialogue relations changed to that of equal partnership, shifting the focus towards market access, trade, investment, tourism, services, science and technology, information technology, and human resource development. Besides economic issues, the dialogue forums now deal with political and security issues.


The ASEAN Organisation

As ASEAN programmes have grown in scope and number and the association deals with new issues and concerns, the ASEAN organisation has evolved from the initially small machinery in 1967 into the large and diversified organisation that it is today. Besides its Secretariat based in Jakarta, ASEAN maintains national secretariats in member countries and committees in the capitals of its dialogue partners and other key countries.

Despite the growth, however, the basic process of ASEAN decision-making and programme implementation has remained. The work flows from the heads of government to ministers to senior officials to regional committees and finally to the ASEAN Secretariat. ASEAN now has more than a hundred committees and subcommittees that are supervising hundreds of projects. The way the organisation operates reflects ASEAN’s core approach of consultation and consensus in tackling problems and undertaking initiatives.

The highest decision-makers in ASEAN are the heads of government of member countries, also referred to as the ASEAN leaders. In 1992 the Fourth ASEAN Summit in Singapore decided that the heads of government would meet formally every three years. In 1995 they agreed to meet informally every year between formal meetings to lay down directions and initiatives for ASEAN activities.

The ASEAN Foreign Ministers draw up policy guidelines and coordinate ASEAN activities at the annual ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM). The meeting was established by the 1967 Bangkok Declaration.

To direct economic cooperation and integration, the ASEAN Economic Ministers (AEM) meet every year. The AEM was institutionalised at the 1977 Kuala Lumpur Summit. The AEM and the AMM report jointly to the ASEAN heads of government during an ASEAN summit.

Ministers for specific sectors of economic cooperation meet when necessary to give guidance on ASEAN cooperation. The sectoral economic ministers report to the AEM.

Meetings of ministers in other fields of ASEAN cooperation-such as Health, Environment, Labour, Social Welfare, Education, Science and Technology, Information and Justice/Law-are held when necessary to draw up programmes of cooperation.

A Joint Ministerial Meeting (JMM), established by the 1987 Manila Summit, convenes when necessary to facilitate the coordination and consultation on ASEAN activities. The JMM usually convenes before the Summit.

Supporting these ministerial bodies are 29 committees of senior officials and 122 technical working groups.

To organise and carry out ASEAN’s activities at country level, each member country has a national secretariat in the foreign ministry. Each national secretariat is headed by a director general.

ASEAN has set up committees in dialogue-partner countries to handle its external relations with these countries and international organisations. These committees are made up of the heads of diplomatic missions of the ASEAN member countries in the host country. They hold consultative meetings with their host governments, the business communities, and civic groups. At present there are 12 such ASEAN committees: Berlin, Brussels, Canberra, Geneva, London, Ottawa, Paris, Moscow, New Delhi, Riyadh, Seoul, Tokyo, Washington and Wellington.

To initiate, advise, coordinate and carry out ASEAN activities, the ASEAN leaders created the position of ASEAN Secretary-General and established the ASEAN Secretariat. The Secretary-Gen-eral is appointed on merit by the heads of government on the recommendation of the ASEAN Min-isterial Meeting. He is accorded ministerial status.

The ASEAN Secretariat was established by an agreement signed by the ASEAN Foreign Ministers at the 1976 Bali summit to enhance coordination and implementation of policies, projects and activities of the ASEAN bodies. Over the years the functions and responsibilities of the Secretariat have evolved as the AMM vested the office with more responsibilities.

The Secretariat has four bureaus taking care of trade, investments, industry, tourism and infrastructure; economic and functional cooperation; finance; and programme coordination and external relations. The Secretariat has about 40 professional staff members openly recruited from the member countries.


Outlook

At the height of the East Asian financial crisis of 1997-98, it had seemed as though the ASEAN countries, like the rest of East Asia, had no future at all, and that the ASEAN idea of community had come to nothing. The economic impact of the crisis was severe; it returned millions into poverty and cut down the emerging Southeast Asian middle class. The prognosis of many was that it would take a decade for ASEAN economies to recover, and that the member countries would eventually go their separate ways.

To the surprise of many, however, the ASEAN countries drew closer together in the fire of crisis. And together they have bounced back and returned to growth.

One reason for the quick recovery and endurance of ASEAN is that the highly diverse countries of Southeast Asia have become more cohesive throughout ASEAN’s 33 years. Across the divisions of geography, politics, economies and cultures, the ASEAN countries have come to experience a sense of community and regional identity. They are diverse and yet they are also one.

As ASEAN leaders prepared for their Summit in Singapore in November 2000, the association and the region looked as though they had a future after all-and a good chance of realising ASEAN Vision 2020. n