ASEAN: Now circumstances demand different focus

Shahab Sabahi

Energy and Environment for Development – Policy Analysis Research Group

Before an incident occurs and urges a change, ASEAN’s leaders now must get fundamental changes in attitudes toward regional cooperation and the importance of a security pack throughout the region.

The recent meeting of ASEAN has stressed again that the establishment of an East Asia community would be a common goal of member states in years ahead. As it was, the economic development topics dominated the summit’s agenda and again security aspects (non-traditional ones) have been missed. The ASEAN leaders must know that the economic and social growth will not be sustainable within an unstable region and when the supply chain of strategic commodities is at risk. The leaders must give increased attention and seriousness to the importance of energy and environment security, natural resource and water resource management, development and cooperation across the region for the benefits of sustainable development.

Despite substantial progress in economic cooperation, there is no sense of a security cooperation in ASEAN. The South China Sea disputes, between some of the ASEAN member states and China, may jeopardize the entire stability across the region and beyond. It includes disruption in energy flows (ship liners), development of natural resources and arm competitions across the region. It turns the existence economic cooperation into competition. Up to date, East Asian integration remains largely economic and market driven and never motivated by security issues. While expanding economic cooperation is certainly a positive development, an exclusive focus on the economic advantages of regional integration and forgetting the security aspects misleads the realization of a more comprehensive and enduring regional cooperation.

The absence of a common cultural and religious heritage, stark economic disparities, emerging confrontational nationalism, widespread domestic governance issues, past US opposition to stronger regional institutions, and both traditional and nontraditional security threats make it abundantly clear that the realization of an East Asia community will be no easy task. Faced with the need to overcome such monumental challenges, there is uncertainty among policymakers about how best to move forward. (Tanaka and Liff 2008)

Here it is. Long term stability requires, region-wide, a comprehensive non-traditional security pack which is rules-based rather than values-based approach. The non-traditional security pack should aim to address inter and intra regional issues through voluntary and coordinated actions, rather than allowing the most powerful governments in the region or out to govern and impose their interests.  Such a pack is the most practical way to deepen trust and long term bound and cooperation between states and gradually lay the groundwork for more substantive regional cooperation in the future. Given the current circumstances in the region, and in particular its vast diversity, a rules-based and process-oriented approach may be the only practical strategy to gradually transcend the potential risks and obstacles and further consolidate the peace, prosperity, and stability of ASEAN.