Asean Summit 

The ASEAN is an organization composed of ten countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia. There is an ongoing summit meeting in Indonesia which will be attended by the heads of states of the member-countries.

The international importance of this organization is shown by the participation of other countries outside the region in this summit meeting. These are Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, Korea and the United States.

This summit meeting has for its theme “ASEAN Matters: Epicentrum of Growth.” For the Philippines and most of the members, the main issue will be the aggressive behavior of China in the South China Sea. President Marcos has said he will bring up this issue in the summit meeting.

The world will be interested to know how the ASEAN countries will react to the Chinese incursions. It should be noted that only five ASEAN countries – the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia – border the South China Sea. These five countries are immediately threatened by the Chinese claim of ownership of practically the entire South China Sea.

The ASEAN was originally established with strong US backing in 1967. It was initially condemned by China and the Soviet Union as a “neoimperialist” American creation. But in recent decades, Beijing has embraced this regional body and signed a free trade agreement in 2002 which has led to a significant expansion of trade.

The region’s wealth has also risen considerably in the past decades. Its combined GDP in the year 2000 was just $620 billion. In 2021, this has increased to $3 trillion compared to Japan’s $5 trillion. Current projections show that the ASEAN economy will be larger than Japan’s by 2030.

While geographic proximity to China has been beneficial in terms of trade, this has also led to serious tension between China and most of the ASEAN countries. The main issue was the Chinese map of the region which featured a so-called nine-dash line which showed that practically the whole of the South China Sea was part of China’s territory.

Recently, China has issued another map, which now showed a ten-dash line which showed an increase in the territory that China claims.

Another serious issue that should be tackled in this summit is climate change.  This is now generally accepted as the world sees increased weather aberrations. There are heat waves and typhoons that are the worst in the history of mankind. Floods have become common even in developed countries, and while there is a near-unanimous agreement that countries must tackle the issue of climate change, the reality is that China is the worst source of carbon emissions because of its dependence on coal as a source of energy. While other developed countries have begun to ban coal as a source of energy, China has continued to build coal-powered plants and has announced the building of more such plants.

Another major issue is the relationship of ASEAN with a member-state, Myanmar. Two years ago, the military deposed the democratically elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi, who still remains in prison. The ASEAN countries have so far failed to come up with a united stand with regards to the Myanmar issue. The military rulers of Myanmar have used violence and extreme violations of human rights to stifle opposition. The world opinion has generally been an opposition to the continuation of military rule and the return of democracy to Myanmar. However, the military rulers of Myanmar have managed to stay in power because of the support of China.

While the ASEAN has managed to survive for more than five decades, it has not been able to be as unified as another regional body, the European Union. Perhaps one cause of this is that there is an absence of a homogenous culture in the region. For example, in terms of religion, Thailand is a Buddhist country and the Muslim religion dominates in Indonesia and Malaysia. The Philippines is an overwhelmingly Christian nation. Vietnam, on the other hand, considers itself as a purely secular state.

There is also a perception that democracy is declining in Southeast Asia. According to the Economist, in three important countries in the region – Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia – democracy is struggling. In Thailand, a general election last May produced a clear winner. This was Move Forward, a party that championed breaking the grip of Thailand’s military elite, after nine years of military rule. But the ruling elite managed to form an alliance with the military and Thaksin Shinawatra, the former prime minister who returned from exile. This new alliance has formed a new ruling coalition which virtually excluded the party that actually won the election.

One common feature of the political scene in Southeast Asia is the rule of elites in every country.  This is accompanied normally by the weakness of political parties. There was a time when Southeast Asia was deemed as the region with the most emerging democracies. While this aspiration has dimmed, it could yet be again.

*      *      *

Email: [email protected]