Leaderless

FIRST PERSON By Alex Magno (The Philippine Star) Updated November 02, 2010

There was a time, early in its existence, when the ASEAN was derided as nothing more than a coffee club  or, worse, a golfing event.

That was during a period when the regional grouping did not really know what it was for. Its predecessor, the Southeast Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) at least had a clear, if outdated, vision: to serve the goals of containing “communist expansionism” in this part of the world. The SEATO was, when it was there, a poor facsimile of the NATO.

In its initial stages, the ASEAN indulged in “cultural exchange” and not much else. There were too many issues on which the member-countries diverged and, it seemed, too little ground on which to converge. The relationship between the Philippines and Malaysia had not yet thawed after Manila’s botched plan to take over North Borneo by force. The Singaporeans feared being surrounded by a great Malay sea. The Indonesians were militant about “non-alignment.” And Brunei had, well, very little sense of what it meant to be a country.

In the nineties, the ASEAN entered into what might seem to be its Golden Age.

The regional association began to see itself as the catalyst of a regional economy. An ambitious ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) was drawn up. There was much excitement about opening up an East Asian growth area in a quadrangle including Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines (BIMP-EAGA).

With a great sense of destiny, and probably inspired by what was happening in Europe post-Berlin Wall, the ASEAN leaders decided on “widening” over “deepening.” The association invited Burma, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos into the grouping. The new entrants were later joined by the region’s newest state, East Timor.

As a regional grouping, the ASEAN countries engaged the world’s powers in security and trade dialogues through the ASEAN regional forum. The US, Russia, China, Japan and later Australia and India were invited as dialogue partners.

Soon enough, China elbowed out all its other rivals by proposing a China-ASEAN Free Trade Area (CAFTA). This larger regional grouping, driven by reciprocal elimination of tariff barriers, seems a more viable project today than even the original idea of a BIMP-EAGA, which seems to have fallen into the graveyard of dead acronyms.

Somehow, over the past few years, the ASEAN seems to have lost some of the dynamism that seemed to gather strength during the nineties. The annual summit of its leaders has failed to reinvigorate a roadmap for the association’s future.

This year’s summit utterly failed to be an inspiring event.

The only reason it made domestic news was because an Aquino aide tweeted about how the wine served by the gracious Vietnamese hosts “sucked.” The only reason it made business news abroad was another one of President Noy Aquino’s imprecise use of words: he suggested that we were “managing” the peso’s exchange rate. BSP Governor Tetangco has to do massive damage-control after a Bloomberg report of Aquino’s remarks suggested the Philippines was guilty of currency manipulation — a cardinal sin in the new financial order.

There could be several reasons why the ASEAN appears to have degenerated back into coffee-club status.

The decision to widen membership in the association created two sets of economies: the original ASEAN 6 and the less developed Indochinese bloc. The disparities prevented the original member-states from quickly integrating their economies and pushing forwards with market-opening initiatives.

The development of an ASEAN charter took longer than expected. The inclusion of Burma in the association proved to be an inconvenience. In an association generally associated with open societies, Burma was ruled by an inward looking regime with a horrific human rights record.

The 1997 Asian financial crisis also seemed to be a turning point for the ASEAN. Without the right mechanisms in place, the member-countries were unable to come to each other’s aid as the crisis unfolded. In the aftermath, they pursued different paths to recovery.

There has been, since then, some talk of establishing a common ASEAN fund — or, more quixotically, a common currency. The utility of either has been the subject of necessary debate.

The least discussed aspect of the diminishing dynamism of the regional association is a marked decline in the quality of leadership among the member-countries. It is least discussed because of obvious sensitivities.

During the nineties, the core ASEAN countries were led by a cadre of leaders with a strong regional vision. This cadre of leaders included Malaysia’s Mahathir Mohammad, Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew, Indonesia’s Suharto and the Philippines’ Fidel Ramos.

It was during this period that, through Ramos’ initiative, Philippine-Malaysian relations were repaired. The Indonesian economy showed the early signs of the vigorous growth it is now posting. Singapore, under Lee’s firm guidance, had posted among the highest per capita incomes in the world.

The generation of leaders ASEAN had during the nineties spoke the same language, in a matter of speaking. They each understood how cultivating a working regional market will abet the prosperity of each member-economy.

These were statesmen. They peered long into the future and looked far beyond their borders to situate the prospects and options facing their own societies.

This generation of leaders traded in the same currency. They understood that if the region cooperated effectively as an economic and politic bloc, each will be able to negotiate better terms for their progress.

Unfortunately, at the present time, the ASEAN does not have the caliber of national leaders that gave the association a voice in global affairs. We are a region without regional leaders and because of that the project of establishing a distinct regional order appears to have lost dynamism.