Last week Asean celebrated its 46th anniversary, and the 10-member grouping is starting to show signs of age. The fact is, few organisations last for so long without the occasional need for a facelift.
Asean was the brainchild of former Thai foreign minister Thanat Khoman, who popped the idea during a banquet, saying the small countries of the region needed a forum to resolve problems and coordinate work on issues of mutual interest.
The official founding dates back to the adoption of the Bangkok Declaration on Aug 8, 1967. But much of the “T-shirt diplomacy” was carried out at the nearby beach resort of Bang Saen by officials of the five founding countries: Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore.
The group today has come a long way in its quest to achieve the members’ original goal “to bind themselves together in friendship and cooperation and, through joint efforts and sacrifices, secure for their peoples and for posterity the blessings of peace, freedom and prosperity”.
Forty-six years later, the vision born in a banquet room is being realised in a region that is one of the most attractive parts of the world, relatively free of conflict and healthy economically.
Given the Cold War backdrop of the 1960s, the founding of Asean was a truly visionary act for a group of small, mostly poor countries caught up in a superpower conflict.
Almost equally visionary is the drive to create the Asean Economic Community by the end of 2015, as the ultimate expression of what the “founding fathers” had in mind.
The Asean Charter spells out the aim to pursue cooperation in economic, social, cultural, technical, educational and other fields, and to promote regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter.
Well, nobody said it was perfect yet. Some members are still hazy on what “rule of law” means. Occasional conflicts arise, such as the Thailand-Cambodia border dispute. And smaller members – Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar – remain vulnerable to undue influence by larger powers.
Some have argued that Asean expanded prematurely. The original five members (plus Brunei, which joined in 1984) embraced fairly similar goals. But the arrival of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam created a large and unwieldy group of states with disparate political philosophies and huge gaps in economic development.
Finding common ground in any cluster of countries with different governments, economic systems, cultures and languages is not easy. Ask the European Union how it managed. Or ask big unitary states such as India and China. In India’s case, the English language bequeathed by the British colonialists has been a unifying factor and helps it get its message across to the world. China’s cultural revolution, meanwhile, helped the country in ways that most people do not like to acknowledge.
So where does Asean stand as a united entity? Well, with economic integration under the AEC just 28 months away, we are not heading anywhere very fast, as a lot of sectors continue to be left high and dry.
Connectivity is still a big issue, while education, language and other aspects of culture are still far from being integrated.
We hear a lot about “economic readiness”, which the propaganda from Asean and various member countries puts at 70-90%, whatever that means. But one major component of the regional economy has received very little attention.
Various research reports suggest that small and medium-sized industries (SME) are most likely to face the biggest impact from the formation of the AEC.
The CIMB Asean Research Institute (CARI), which actively supports regional economic integration, has pointed out that although member states have eliminated import tariffs, there is still a significant list of exceptions. While Asean negotiators talk a lot about all the goods that are exempt from taxes, member states still want to protect some of their industries.
Moreover, while SMEs account for 98% of Asean businesses, many are not yet fully aware of the opportunities that the single market can bring them.
One cannot blame Asean entirely for SMEs not being prepared. But perhaps Asean and its members could have done a better job preparing their economies and people for integration by starting with a small group and then gradually opening up to other members in the future.
Maybe the lesson learned here is that Asean should have got its house in better order before accepting new members. Having a big, diverse group without the backbone to support all members can only lead to trouble, something the founders of Asean would not have envisioned or wanted.