As it approaches its 47th birthday, heading into the final stretch of its highly touted integrated community, Asean appears increasingly challenged both within the 10-member organisation and the region.
Domestic political contests of key Asean members combined with growing friction and fragmented responses vis-a-vis China over territorial disputes in the South China Sea are likely to constrain the Asean Community (AC) project. It will remain on course for the end of next year, as scheduled, but it may look much less integrated than originally envisaged.
On paper, the AC comprises political-security, economic and socio-cultural pillars that are supposed to be mutually reinforcing. Although the Asean Economic Community (AEC) attracts most of the attention because of its apparent intra-regional trade and investment boon, it is the Asean Political-Security Community (APSC) which is being put to the test by geopolitical tensions in the South China Sea over contested territory and resources between Asean claimants and China. Meanwhile, the Asean Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) sounds lofty but superfluous because not many Asean inhabitants have been to each other’s countries or share English as a designated common tongue.
Asean is accustomed to being patchy and makeshift in its norms and practices. The end-2015 deadline, for example, was a year’s delay from Jan 1, but the 10-member organisation could fudge and claim the same deadline year. Most Asean peoples of course will be celebrating the New Year on Dec 31 next year, not a newly formed “community” in Southeast Asia, although Asean elites and officials will no doubt make predictable pronouncements. We can then expect some sort of an Asean Community Plus to be announced not long after January 2016.
In the interim, the AC’s headway until end 2015 is increasingly hemmed in by prolonged and protracted domestic preoccupations, undermining organisational leadership and momentum.
As noted by Asean Secretary-General Le Luong Minh in a speech in Tokyo right after Thailand’s latest coup, the new military government in Bangkok presents a conundrum for Asean. Thailand used to lead Asean with its second largest and thriving economy on the back of promising democratisation. But now Bangkok has gone in reverse, from the cusp of democratic consolidation to the return of outright military rule. But Thailand is not alone in posing domestic challenges to broader Asean integration.
Myanmar’s current chairmanship of Asean, for instance, is bogged down by the ethnic, religious and communal violence in western Rakhine State centring on the contested identity and role of the nearly one million Rohingya Muslims. In addition, ongoing armed conflicts between Myanmar’s army and ethnic minorities have persisted, particularly in northern Kachin State. And Myanmar is fixated on by-elections later this year ahead of a general election in 2015 against the backdrop of potential constitutional amendments and internal squabbling and jockeying for the coveted post-election presidency.
These domestic challenges, together with emerging presidential competition between opposition icon Aung San Suu Kyi, military general-cum-speaker of parliament Shwe Mann and even incumbent President Thein Sein have combined to impede Myanmar’s Asean chairmanship.
Recent media censorship and restriction of basic civil liberties have compounded concerns that Myanmar, too, is finding the road of electoral democracy bumpy. Nay Pyi Taw would be fortunate at this stage to finish the year after the much-anticipated Asean-related summits in October on a status quo footing. Myanmar’s chair is turning out to be a minimalist rather than a maximalist outcome.
Such limitations are a pity. Myanmar’s opening and reforms over the past three years have been pivotal for Asean, enabling the organisation to geo-strategically connect with South Asia. Myanmar as chair also makes Asean a “normal” regional organisation in which all members can assume the rotating chairmanship. (Myanmar had to skip its turn in 2006 because of its shoddy human rights and democracy record.) And Myanmar’s growing openness adds to regional democratisation when established electoral democracies like Thailand and Malaysia face reversal and potential sclerosis
Moreover, Malaysia as Asean chair in 2015 has already set up an agenda for its turn, touting a “people-centred Asean” and scoring political points at home for showing foresight and regional leadership.
With it still more than half a year before Myanmar hands over the annual chair, Malaysia should be supporting the current chair rather than embellishing its own. Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak has called for increased budget resources for the Asean Secretariat and floated the idea of a fourth AC pillar on the environment to deal with climate change and cross-regional problems like haze from Indonesia. These chairmanship noises from Kuala Lumpur detract and hinder Myanmar’s role as chair.
Apart from Thai domestic politics, Asean is also constrained by a fierce presidential contest in Indonesia next month, where Joko “Jokowi” Widodo is trying to beat former army strongman Prabowo Subianto. If Mr Widodo prevails, he may have to form a coalition government that will involve backroom deals and horse-trading with other parties. Another stable five-year term with an orderly electoral change of government could help consolidate Indonesian democracy.
As Indonesia and Thailand are two regional stalwarts that have provided Asean’s organisational thrust in the past, the presidential election in one country and military coup in the other do not bode well for the organisation’s near-term momentum on the global stage.
Domestic politics elsewhere in Malaysia and Cambodia are unwieldy and unsupportive of a more cohesive and united Asean. Opposition coalitions have not been cohesive and effective enough to capitalise on much weaker incumbent regimes in these two countries.
Moreover, the intensifying disputes over the South China Sea have been divisive to Asean as a whole. The Philippines and Vietnam are at the forefront in contesting China’s claim to most of the South China Sea, with supporting positions from Malaysia and Indonesia. Other Asean members, however, are largely fence-sitters in this contest. Beijing can count on a divided Asean as it manoeuvres for greater claims over the area.
While these challenges to the AC realisation have become pricklier, they are unlikely to derail Asean’s integration aspirations. The Asean way of considerable cooperation and incremental integration is to agree first and to agree on more than what is implementable, and then implement later and implement less than agreed. This has meant that Asean’s average implementation rate is around 30%.
If the planned AC can keep up with this average, it will be a worthwhile feat. Thirty percent over five decades, as Asean eyes its golden anniversary in 2017, can add up to a lot, enough to keep the group relevant to the outside world and dynamic and prosperous within, despite the domestic political setbacks in member countries.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak is associate professor and director of the Institute of Security and International Studies, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University.