In just 30 years, Vietnam has reduced extreme poverty from 50% to roughly 3% — an astounding accomplishment.
One essential paradox about ASEAN needs to be observed at the beginning of this volume: ASEAN’s strength can be found in its weakness. The reason ASEAN has emerged as the indispensable platform for great-power engagement in the Asia-Pacific region is that it is too weak to be a threat to anyone. So all great powers instinctively trust it.
In the end, everybody came to the conclusion that however ungainly, however inefficient, however elliptical ASEAN’s ways are, it’s still better than not having an ASEAN. That is the genius of ASEAN foreign policy. In the end, almost with a sneer, they accepted that ASEAN should be in the driving seat. Yes, ASEAN’s leadership is the most preferred because no other driver would be trusted by the others.
Almost all Southeast Asian states were artificial entities, whose boundaries were established only during the colonial era, still imperfectly integrated, and therefore subject to fits of insecurely insistent nationalism.
The range of religious diversity is remarkable in itself. But it actually masks a deeper cultural diversity. In Indonesia, the Acehnese and most Javanese are Muslim. Yet, culturally they could not be more different. And this is one reason why the Acehnese fought a bitter war of separation from Indonesia for several decades.
Both suffered from corruption. Both experienced decades of military rule under strong military rulers — Suharto and Mubarak. Yet, Egypt remains a troubled country still under military rule while Indonesia has emerged as the leading democracy in the Islamic world. What explains the difference? The one-word answer is ASEAN.
The main causes of death are as striking as the fact itself: suicide, alcoholism, and overdoses of prescription and illegal drugs. “People seem to be killing themselves, slowly or quickly.” These circumstances are usually caused by stress, depression and despair. Rising suicide rates represent the most extreme expression of growing pessimism.
In contrast to the budget of the EU Secretariat, which is $154B, the annual budget of ASEAN Secretariat is $19M.
This ability of Thailand to comfortably assimilate both the Indian and Chinese cultural waves may well demonstrate a secret cultural genius of Southeast Asian societies: the ability to accept and live with differences.
Almost 1,400 years ago, the legendary Chinese monk Xuanzang wrote: “People of distant places with diverse customs generally designate the land that they admire as India.” Southeast Asia’s ready acceptance of Indian culture throughout history testifies to this.
We see this history as explaining why Southeast Asian cultures are “soft” in contrast to Northeast Asian cultures, which are “hard.” Because of Indian cultural influence.
In the end, the system primarily served the practical purpose of facilitating trade for the tributary states. While flawed, the tributary system offered mutual benefit from both economic and security standpoints to the tributary states and China alike. Tributary states received trade benefits and, in some cases, security guarantees, while China got strategic peace of mind, reaffirmation of its self-regard, and an effective means of saving the cost of maintaining a large standing army to patrol all its borders.
Professor Wang describes Champa as “Vietnam’s perennial enemy and a loyal vassal of China which depended on China to hold the Vietnamese back. China’s authority was backed by its enormous military potential which the Vietnamese had no wish to test. An admonition from the Ming emperor was a useful deterrent.” Sadly, “when the Ming armies failed again and again to crush the Vietnamese ‘rebels,’ that authority lost its deterrent force.” This led to Champa’s eventual destruction at the hands of Vietnam.
Europeans were lured to Southeast Asia in the 16th and 17th centuries by that period’s equivalent of a “gold rush”: the search for direct access to the valuable spices of Southeast Asia. Before the Industrial Revolution, demand for goods such as tea, spices, porcelain and silk drove European imperialism.
French rule saved Cambodia from Vietnam and Thailand.
The post-Western division of maritime Southeast Asia into two separate “Malay” entities, Malaysia and Indonesia (or three if Brunei is included), is a somewhat artificial division.
Sukarno was difficult because at the back of his mind he always wanted to crush us, because I think, chiefly, he was suspicious of the strong Malay feeling which existed between us and the Sumatrans. He felt that the people of Sumatra were closer to us than they were to Java.
From the commercial point of view, the Philippines is an Anglo-Chinese colony with a Spanish flag.
Some wise soul once remarked that for every thousand books written on the causes of war, one is written on the causes of peace. Indeed, when war breaks out, we notice it immediately. Yet when a durable ecosystem of peace settles in, few notice. Even fewer try to explain. ***
The ASEAN countries successfully wove themselves into the thriving East Asian economic ecosystem, at a time when world trade was expanding. They set this in motion by learning economic lessons from Japan and the “Four Tigers” and emulating the best practices of these successful East Asian countries in their national development policies.
Gold was an important factor. It helped breakdown barrier and promote camaraderie. We even had an ASEAN golf game at a weekend when we attended the annual UN General Assembly.
LKY had told American VP Humphrey that if America were to withdraw from Vietnam, “there would be fighting in Thailand within 1.5 to 2 years, in Malaysia shortly thereafter, and within 3 years, I would be hanging in the public square.
When Saigon fell, this dark days must have seemed imminent. Lee told Ford, “My immediate reaction is one of astonishment and alarm at the rapidity with which the situation fell apart.” Describing the chaos in Southeast Asia, Lee reported that the Thais believed “the US has no morals. The press is having a carnival. Laos is a goner. Cambodia is a struggle between China and Hanoi.”
This arrogance of the Vietnamese leadership led to them making one of the strategically most disastrous decisions in Vietnam’s history. When the Communist took over Indochina in 1975, it was generally assumed that the Communist parties of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam would work as a cohesive block, since they had fought together against the American. However, the opposite happened. Traditional rivalries between Cambodia and Vietnam, which go back several centuries, surfaced soon after the three Communist parties took over. The Cambodian Khmer Rogue regime broke off from Vietnam. Pol Pot began to side with China to counterbalance Vietnam’s close alliance with the Soviet Union. The Sino-Soviet split had surfaced in Indochina.
One reason why Thailand had never been colonized in the European colonial era was that Thais had developed a culture of accommodation of the new powers that appeared at their doorstep. Hence, when Vietnamese tanks swiftly crossed Cambodia and arrived at the Thai-Cambodian border, there was a natural tendency on the part of some Thai politicians to accommodate and accept the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia.
The seriousness of purpose came only with the shock of the terrible alternatives. There is urgency for greater economic cooperation, to accelerate growth, to reduce poverty and lessen recruits for communist guerrilla bands. The political will has been found to get together to meet the new problems.
To understand why Suharto’s leadership was critical, look at the problems of other regional organizations similar to ASEAN, like the Organization of American States and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation. The former failed because its most powerful member state, the US, always tried to dominate it. Similarly, the latter failed because India, by far the most powerful, also tried to dominate it. This prevented any real sense of regional cohesion.
Mahathir dismissed LKY’s position as “the mad ambition of one man to see himself as the first Chinese PM of Malaysia,” saying that he was a good example of an “insular, selfish and arrogant” Chinese chauvinist.
Vietnam’s isolation was not a given. In the late 1970s, Vietnam continued to enjoy a positive glow in the eyes of many recently decolonized Third World countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. After all, it had defeated the US — the most powerful Western country — in a spectacular fashion. Hence, when Vietnam invaded Cambodia in December 1978, its leaders fully expected the majority of Third World countries to sympathize with them. Instead, to their surprise, Vietnam became isolated in the Third World.
ASEAN was clearly being used by two great powers. Despite this unavoidable reality, ASEAN was still “lucky” that it was being used. The support of the two powers ensured that ASEAN eventually succeeded in reversing the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia. This success in turn boosted the global standing of ASEAN and, equally important, boosted the self-confidence of the ASEAN countries. All the members realized that they were members of a winning team. Their commitment to each other was reinforced.
Malaysia identified what we believed to be the factors which contributed towards Japan’s success. They are the patriotism, discipline, good work ethics, competent management system and above all the close cooperation between the Government and the private sector.
The dominant ideology of the G77 bloc was anti-capitalist and anti-free market. Foreign investment was spurned. Indeed, foreign investors were often portrayed as capitalist leeches sucking the blood of poor Third World peasants and workers.
One of the wisest things that Malaysian civil servants did was to completely replicate brochures produced by the EDB or Singapore on “Why you should invest in Singapore.”
Kishore recalls one Japanese scholar explaining that the Japanese favored Thailand because it had “the sweet smell of culture.” Thailand’s dominant Buddhist culture as well as the relative cultural openness of Thai society made the Japanese feel welcome there.
However, America also began to see its many Cold War allies in a new light, questioning their usefulness and seeing their flaws in sharper relief. Since it would have been seen as unethical (not to mention ungrateful) to use then then abandon allies, America needed an ethical justification. Under Jimmy Carter, America started bringing human rights into foreign policy conversations. By the 1990s, human rights were used as a tool to create distance from inconvenient or former allies.
The Clinton administration’s lack of enthusiasm for ASEAN was not surprising. America under Clinton enjoyed a unique “unipolar” moment, and allies were not needed.
However, the US froze tie with Singapore after Singapore caned an American teenager in May 1994. During the Cold War, such a minor episode would not have disrupted relations. The Cold War trumped all other considerations, but when the Cold War ended, allies like Singapore became dispensable and small issues became big problems.
Had the situation arisen during the Cold War, there is little doubt that Thailand would have quickly received assistance. However, by 1997 memories of Thailand’s strong support for America during the Cold War had long faded in Washington. Thailand was left twisting in the wind. It would be an understatement to say that the Thai establishment felt deeply betrayed. The sense of betrayal become more acute when Washington rushed to rescue South Korea in December 1997. The contrast could not have been more striking, and it clearly indicated that Thailand had become dispensable. By contrast, China tried to help out Thailand and the other ASEAN countries by refusing to devalue the RMB, at some cost to the Chinese economy. Accordingly, there is a belief today in Bangkok that China is a more reliable friend than America.
Washington insisted that all of Indonesia’s struggling banks should be shut down. Barely a decade later, when America suffered a similar problem with its banks, it bailed them out. The double standard could not have been clearer.
To the absolute shock of the ASEAN countries, the Americans began to practice as routine the same human rights violations (such as torture and detention without trial) that they had accused the ASEAN countries of carrying out. American went seamlessly from being a defender to a violator of human rights when its national interests changed.
This episode taught the ASEAN countries a valuable lesson: even when relations are good, great power interests trump ethical and human rights principle.
He begins by asserting an incontestable truth: “America has done more good for the rest of the world than any other country.” Yet, it is also true that America has harmed the world in several ways. The one region that has suffered the most from America power is Latin America.
Few Americans know or understand the bitterness they have generated in their own backyard.
How does it feel now that horror is erupting in your own yard and not in your neighbor’s living room? Do you know that between 1824 and 1994 your country carried out 73 invasions in countries of Latin America? For almost a century, your country has been at war with the entire world. How does it feel, Yank, knowing that on September 11th the long war finally reached your home?
It strengthened the Thai narrative that since the late 1970s, the Kingdom has always been able to rely on China’s support in times of crisis, while America behaves as a fair weather friend.
China has given various private assurances to Indonesia leaders that it does not claim those EEZ waters but will not say this publicly.
He proudly proclaimed that with the end of the Cold War, there were only two superpowers left in the world: the US and the EU. He exuded arrogance.
Sometimes Europe has a tendency to give too much advice on things that are domestic affairs, which is something we do not always appreciate. I believe that if we treat each other with the respect that is necessary for sovereign countries, we will have no problem in developing a real strategic partnership. But we will start with trade, because that is the easiest starting point.
After all, public policy should be guided by evidence, not intuition and emotion. And the evidence indicates that, in order to achieve success and avoid unintended consequences, carefully calibrated sanctions must be pursued in tandem with political engagement. Imposing sanctions may feel good. But if they are actually to do good, we must refine how they are used.
A major country like Russia cannot be humiliated into submission.
Another way Japan might demonstrate support for ASEAN would be a “big bang” project in a field such as energy, where it is clearly a world leader. Japan uses one-tenth as much energy as China for every unit added to GNP. In part this is because Japan has moved many heavy-duty manufacturing plants overseas, including some to China. But the Japanese have also devised ingenious ways to reduce energy consumption.
Angkor was the largest pre-industrial city in the world at its peak in the 12th century, but after its glorious period as the seat of the Khmer empire from the 9th to the 15th century, Cambodia weakened and lost territory to two powerful neighboring states, Thailand and Vietnam. Cambodia could easily have been absorbed by its neighbors, but as it was on the verge of extinction, the European stepped in.
Economically speaking, the Suharto regime has done many things right. It has used the country’s oil wealth relatively wisely, investing in rural infrastructure, schools, and health clinics. By developing a manufacturing base before its reserves were depleted, Indonesia, unlike almost all other OPEC members, has avoided a crippling dependency on petroleum.
If Jokowi cannot outmanoeuvre the economic nationalists, he could end up making the same tragic mistake that another middle power, Brazil, made: relying on its domestic market to promote economic growth. Indonesia should follow the example of China instead. If Indonesia is unwilling to open up and compete with fellow ASEAN countries in what, in global terms, would be described as a “baby pool” of competition, it is only crippling its ability to develop an economy that can compete with the world.
Boredom in geopolitics is a good thing. It signifies that peace and harmony is dominating the region. By contrast, excitement in ASEAN Plus One meetings would signify geopolitical turbulence.
Over the long term, there are few guarantees of independence and self-determination for a country like Laos. The presumption that small states have the right to be independent and sovereign is a gift from the UN Charter of 1945. As long as the norms of the UN Charter and also the ASEAN Charter remain in force, Laos needs not worry about losing its political independence. But for most of its history, there was no such guarantee.
Indeed, at the height of Burmese power in the 16th century, it created the largest empire ever seen in mainland Southeast Asia. It covered an area including modern Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos. Myanmar was ruled from India only when the British arrived and conquered both India and Myanmar.
About 100M Filipinos lives in the Philippines. An additional 12M live overseas. This desire to emigrate reflects a lack of confidence that success can come at home.
This exceptional team implemented 3 exceptional policies: meritocracy, pragmatism, and honesty. Meritocracy means a country picks its best citizens, not relatives of the ruling class, to run the country. Pragmatism means that a country does not try to reinvent the wheel. Honesty is the hardest of the 3 principles. Corruption is the single biggest reason why most Third World countries have failed.
Singapore needs to continue strengthening ASEAN because, despite its own extraordinary success, it remains vulnerable — as all small states do. The existential challenge Singapore faces is a simple one. To survive, it has to remain paranoid and keep worrying about new challenges. Yet, it also has to retain strong faith in its future to prevent massive migration out of Singapore.
When the Cold War ended, Thailand was among the first Southeast Asian countries to move towards a more open and liberal democracy. Thai politicians in the 1990s even began preaching the virtues of democracy to their fellow ASEAN countries. Thai newspapers published commentaries criticizing other Southeast Asian governments as undemocratic.
Given this Thai period of democratic preachiness, it is ironic that Thailand has reverted to military rule. All this was the result of Thaksin’s party winning several elections in a row. Thaksin succeeded because he was able to win the votes of the large and relatively poor population in the northeastern areas of Thailand. He won by delivering goodies to them, such as massively subsidized healthcare services, a 3-year debt freeze, grants to villages for creating small businesses, and agricultural subsidies.
Thaksin’s success resulted in a shift of power away from the traditional Bangkok establishment that had long dominated political power in Thailand.
At the risk of being politically incorrect, we would describe Vietnam as the “hardest” country in Southeast Asia. This is a perception shared by both of us, a matter of intuition. Most Southeast Asian cultures are soft and supple; Vietnam’s is hard and unyielding. Thailand has preserved its independence by bending with the winds, like a strong and supple bamboo. By contrast, Vietnam is like a hard rock. It stands firm and strong, even in the most violent storms. Hence, when the US, as the world’s greatest military power, attacked Vietnam with all its might, Vietnam did not flinch.
The ultimate political challenge for Vietnam’s leaders is a simple one: how to take geopolitical advantage of rising concerns about China without alienating and antagonizing China. However, this is not a new challenge for Vietnam. It has been dealing with it for over 2,000 years. Hence, it must have accumulated, over the centuries, political wisdom about dealing with China.
Overall, it is not difficult to be optimistic for Vietnam. In all likelihood, it will emerge as a significant economic power, like South Korea today.
The frequent meetings of senior officials, ministers and so forth are actually a great strength, even if they don’t result in anything concrete. They are seen as a waste of time. But they develop a sense of identity, of coming together as a group; they develop the idea that we are an entity. If not for the frequent meetings at all levels, we would not have that sense of identity and unity.
When leaders are strong domestically, they are not so concerned that vested interests might attack them on their foreign policy decisions.
The EPG asked each of them separately: “If there’s one thing you wish ASEAN could do, what would it be?” All of them said: implementing of decisions. The biggest issue with ASEAN was that there was no enforcement of decisions, no monitoring of compliance, and no sanctions.
The second threat that ASEAN faces is that its political leaders are focused on domestic challenges rathre than regional concerns. Looking back now, it is clear that one reason for ASEAN’s golden era in the 1980s and 1990s is that it had strong leaders such as LKY, Mahathir and Suharto at the helm. Because they were strong domestically, they could find the time and political resources to work on regional cooperation.
To Myanmar, ASEAN was everything they had. They would attend all ASEAN meetings. They would have set pieces, prepared statements. They would be thick-skinned in receiving criticism, but they stuck it out, because we were their only hope. They didn’t want to be too close to China, even though they depended on China. India supported Aung San Suu Kyi initially and took an intermediate position, but was never close to them. The Western powers were pretty hostile.
After his first meeting with his fellow ASEAN leaders, he reportedly turned to ask PM LHL whether it was necessary for ASEAN leaders to make such routine statements at each ASEAN meeting. He preferred to avoid these rituals and work on solving real problems at home.
But rituals matter. When leaders assemble together in ritualistic fashion each year, they get to know each other as human beings and not as officials representing different countries.