Carrying Asean's heavy baggage

Asean leaders will find their bags packed full of expectations, and must carry and unpack their burdens with care. Can positive steps be taken?

Fresh from winning his second term, American President Barack Obama will be present alongside Chinese leaders, going through their own and very different transition. The summit will be a first place to guess about the future for the world’s most important bilateral relationship.

In campaigning, US voters bemoaned the loss of jobs, and Obama wagged a finger at Beijing’s practices. It remains to be seen if he will use the Asean Summit as a first, informal opportunity to shift to a more positive note.

The president will then go to Myanmar, a country until recently closeted and controversial because of human rights. This will further the Obama administration’s pivot towards Asia, but those who suspect an American containment strategy will be watching closely. 

The summit will also reveal Beijing’s attitudes. At the Communist Party Congress, outgoing leader Hu Jin Tao underlined China’s ambition to become a maritime power. This comes when territorial claims at sea are hot-button issues, not only with Tokyo but a number of Southeast Asian states.

The latter disputes marred the Asean Ministerial Meeting in July, which ended without an agreed statement for the first time in its history. That was attributed to sensitivities about how to describe disputed claims. At the upcoming summit, the rival and unresolved claims cannot be wholly ignored. Yet if discussion is unbalanced, differences can be further inflamed, and for little benefit.

This brings Cambodia into sharp focus as the host. When the July Asean meeting broke down, many fingers put the blame on Beijing’s influence. Cambodia and China have denied this in various ways, but a second test of intention and ability will come at the summit.

Cambodia must be expected to discharge its responsibility to Asean as a whole. The country, after all, hosts this summit on the group’s behalf, and not as a national prerogative.

For China, it has always officially supported Asean’s central role, and should not divide and weaken the group.

On its own part, Asean must continue to work on the long to-do list that stems from the agenda to create an Asean community by the end of 2015. This is not only on matters of politics but also to foster economic integration and better social and cultural understanding.

The summit will include the launch of an Asean institute for peace and reconciliation, and a human rights declaration. Also expect recommendations to strengthen the group’s Secretariat, when Thailand’s charismatic Surin Pitsuwan closes his term as secretary-general and gives way to Vietnam’s deputy foreign minister, Le Luong Minh.

These and other aspects of the intra-Asean agenda intertwine with its wider role. Asean’s unity and credibility are prerequisites and thus Asean’s community project is a key pillar for the wider region, and vice-versa. This sets the context for another new initiative expected at the summit. 

Talks are expected to begin for a Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to link Asean to six Asian partners – the big three of Northeast Asia as well as India, Australia and New Zealand. Potentially, the RCEP will bring together more than 3 billion people, with a combined gross domestic product over US$17 trillion.

This all-Asian effort is especially significant as Beijing has felt pointedly excluded from the ongoing and American-led negotiations on a Trans-Pacific Partnership. Having Asean at the hub of the RCEP underlines the group’s significance to others in Asia.

It is not, however, to be assumed that Asean will be strong enough to carry the burden of so many and such diverse interests for its own members and the wider region. Other countries will hopefully show empathy and support for the many different interests that will be packed and brought to Phnom Penh. Only then can Asean leaders unpack a heavy and sometimes awkward summit agenda and ensure items are delivered, and not broken on the way.

 

Simon Tay is chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs and teaches international law at the Faculty of Law, the National University of Singapore. He is the author of Asia Alone: The Dangerous Post Crisis Divide from America.