This essay will examine the evolution of the ASEAN organization and whether it has effectively managed regional security and economic relations.

Introduction

Association of Southeast Asian Nations is a premier organization in the Southeast Asian region including 8.8% of the world’s population. ASEAN has been somewhat of an important actor in the region in terms of increasing economic relations and creating stability in the region. However due to its traditional lack of legal authority and institutionalization the impact of the organization has been quite varied. This essay will examine the evolution of the ASEAN organization and whether it has effectively managed regional security and economic relations.

Evolution of ASEAN

ASEAN was established on the 8th of August 1967 in Bangkok by five member countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. The main objectives of the association is to enhance regional security, create opportunities for economic growth, promote regional cooperation and sense of community. The motivation for the creation of ASEAN arouse out of the member nation’s desire for nation building, combat communism and reduce the influence of foreign powers such as the United States and Britain. February 1976 of the first ASEAN Summit in Bali, Indonesia. The annual summit was designed to promote regional economic development and cultural succession. The evolution of ASEAN continued with the entrance of Brunei in ASEAN in January of 1984 and the creation of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) was established in 1994. The forum includes twenty-seven countries with ten of these being ASEAN members. The latter portion of the 1990s proved to be quite decisive in terms of gaining regional stability and prospects for economic growth with the introduction of Vietnam in 1995, Laos and Myammar in 1997 and Cambodia in 1999. This was further compounded with the 1997 ASEAN plus three meeting and the first ASEAN-China Summit. The primary objectives for ASEAN remain the same. The ASEAN members cite terrorism as a source for instability in the region along with China as is exemplified through the South China Sea dispute. ASEAN has continued to increase economic relations in the region with the establishment of the ASEAN Community and a commitment to establish a free trading bloc by 2015.

Regional Security

Management of regional security has been an integral objective to ASEAN, which have been spared on by events such as Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia. After the examination of the actions of ASEAN, it is clear that the organization has had little impact on the direct creation of regional stability. In fact in some cases it ASEAN has increased instability. However the organisation has somewhat created a sense of community with indirect and non-violent methods utilized to create stability. This is evident from the relationship between ASEAN and communism, the non use of violence and non interference in state matters.

ASEAN and Communism

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ASEAN and Communism

The creation of AEAN came during a period of instability and conflict between the communists and the western bloc (Taylor and Francis 2009). The five founding members of ASEAN were non-communist countries and shared a common fear of the communist uprising (Taylor and Francis 2009). The establishment of ASEAN accentuated the regional instability in Southeast Asia, where the People’s republic of China were actively spreading their national liberation message, as it split the region into distinct hostile sub-regions (Taylor and Francis 2009). ASEAN members created a divide with the non-member countries in Asia, especially in the southeastern region. The majority of the nations in the region were non-ASEAN members as their were barred from joining due to domestic instability, caused result of a communist regime, or a refusal to join in order to maintain relations with communist neighbours (Narine 2008). For example, Vietnam’s exclusion was based on the fact that war was raging within the nation. However, according to Dewi Fortuna Anwar, the growing communist regime in Vietnam also played a significant role in their exclusion as they posed a security threat in the region (Narine 2008). Furthermore, Burma and Cambodia refused to join the ASEAN to prevent fallout from their neighbour, China, whom saw ASEAN as a tool of the west to contain communism in the Asian region (Taylor and Francis 2009). This is demonstrated by the Philippines and Thai membership of the American-led defence pact of the Southeast Asian Treaty Organisation who attempted to contain the expansion of communism. Therefore ASEAN was able to deal with communist threats within its region (Narine 2008).

Non-use of force and pacific settlement of disputes

ASEAN has upheld the concept of non-violent bilateral and multilateral methods of achieving stability within the region (Taylor and Francis 2009). The impetus for this approach was developed through the conflict between Indonesia and Malaysia. The major test of ASEAN’s use of non-force came during the dispute between Malaysia and the Philippines over the former region of Sabah (Taylor and Francis 2009). The dispute placed ASEAN ‘on ice’ and thus threatened its existence. However, ASEAN utilized regional pressure through committee meetings and informal discussions, such as unofficial meetings with the then vice president Adam Malik, to aid in the re-establishment of diplomatic relations between Malaysia and the Philippines (Taylor and Francis 2009). While ASEAN managed to avoid military action between the two nations, it failed to rectify the dispute and brushed it under the carpet (Taylor and Francis 2009). This incident influenced ASEAN to create a formal mechanism to deal with future disputes. The Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, signed in 1976, provided ASEAN with an official dispute-settlement mechanism (Jackson and Soesastro 1984). This consists of ministerial-level representatives from each member state. The ASEAN leaders have praised this mechanism as a success for the continuation of the non-use of force in intra-regional relations. Therefore the creation of this mechanism has allowed the effective management of regional security.

Non-interference

ASEAN’s successful promotion of regionalism and security is often pinned upon its continued ability to uphold the principles of non-interference (Taylor and Francis 2009). These principles have been developed through the 1971 Kuala Lumpur Declaration and the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. This thus led to the creation of the ASEAN doctrine of non-interference (Taylor and Francis 2009). This contains four main principles. These include: refraining from criticizing the actions of a member government towards its own people, criticizing the actions of states which were deemed to have breached the non-interference principles, denying support to destabilizing rebel groups and providing support to member states in their campaign against subversive and destabilizing activities (Taylor and Francis 2009). An example of the second aspect of the ASEAN non-interference policy can be found in the group’s strong criticism of Vietnam’s 1978 invasion of Cambodia (Taylor and Francis 2009). This has warranted the statement by the former Singaporean foreign minister, Shunmugam Jayakumar, “non-interference in the affairs of another country was…the key factor as to why no military conflict had broken out between any two member states since 1967” (Narine 1998). Therefore these principles of non-interference have allowed ASEAN to promote regional security, which has been successfully applied.

Increased economic relations have been established through greater economic integration. ASEAN have produced opportunities to increase this integration however it is primarily through market mechanisms and forces that the process of economic integration has occurred. This exemplified after careful examination of regional trade and foreign direct investment.

Economic integration

Trade

ASEAN has been a relative insignificant player in increasing regional trade as apposed to market forces. The Asian region is unable to promote a common architecture of economic trade such as a European Union (EU) type model due to the region’s heavy reliance on extra-regional trade (Lestano 1995). Since the 1970s, ASEAN intra-regional trade has accounted for 15%-30% of total trade (Hill and Menon 2010). In contrast, the EU’s intra-regional trade accounts for 70% of trade. Analysts in agreement with the economic policies utilized by ASEAN often highlight the rapid increase in intra-regional trade since the early 1990s due to the Common Effective Preferential Tariff Scheme (PTA) and the ASEAN Free Trade Arrangement (AFTA) (Hill and Menon 2010). However the due to the multilateral nature of AFTA, the increases in the intra-regional trade can be attributed more to the complementarities and market driven factors rather than policy measures (Hill and Menon 2010). Furthermore, Singapore’s dominance as an intra-regional trade partner has provide them with autonomy over the setting of common external trade boundary settings (Jackson and Soesastro 1998). In other words, a common external ASEAN trade regime would have to be at Singapore levels (Jackson and Soesastro 1998). This does not necessarily preclude the adoption of free trade within ASEAN alongside differing trade policies for each state (Hill and Menon 2010). The margins of preference between the AFTA and most favored nation (MFN) rates are already very low, and the administrative procedures render the AFTA option unattractive (Hill and Menon 2010).

Along with AFTA, ASEAN has been committed to service trade, intra-regional investment and labor movements with ratification of intra-regional agreements (Hill and Menon 2010). However, according the analysts such as Jayant Menon, increases in such trade can be attributed to market forces rather than formal regional initiatives. The ASEAN Framework Agreement of Services (AFAS) have centered around service liberlisation on factors including financial services, transport, telecommunications, tourism, and professional business services (Hill and Menon 2010). Conversely the lack of commitment by the ASEAN states to open up the service market, create adequate cooperation frameworks, construct legal restrictions and limit institutionalism has resulted in limited progress (Larine 1995). These problems have been compounded by the global tendency to liberalize services last, whether in the form of general market liberalization or specifically privatization and FDI liberalization (Hill and Menon 2010).

Foreign direct investment (FDI)

FDI agreements have been used to promote the success of ASEAN in promoting economic integration in the region. Since the 1980s ASEAN has increased the number of agreements concerning the FDI such as the ASEAN Investment Guarantee Agreement (IGA) and Framework Agreement on the ASEAN Investment Area (AIA) (Hill and Menon 2010). The most important scheme of the AIA was the preferential treatment provided to ASEAN members in a reciprocal arrangement, which encouraged regional investment and integration (Hill and Menon 2010). However, this was undercut during the 39th Meeting of the AEM as this preferential treatment privilege was extended to foreign ASEAN based investors. The 2009 ASEAN Comprehensive Investment Agreement (ACIA) was an attempt to resolve the issues created by the agreements (Hill and Menon 2010). However, the success of this was not to do with the agreement but rather the regional investment flow increases from market based activities. Therefore the initiatives created by ASEAN in the AIA were unable to provide the region economic integration (Hill and Menon 2010). This is because non-ASEAN economies dominate these flows, and are typically five to seven times larger than those originating from within ASEAN (Hill and Menon 2010).

Conclusion

ASEAN has been important to the development of economic relations and regional stability. However quite often the organization has indirectly created opportunities to increase relations and stability in the region. The sense of community established and market mechanism and forces can often be accredited with increases in both these categories.

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