EXPANDING ASEAN: AN IDEA WORTH BURYING
An Australian in ASEAN.
It sounds like the title of an innocent-abroad movie: The hero has
adventures, blunders and embarrasses.
But in the end Aussie charm and grit prevail; romance blossoms and the
outsider becomes an insider.
It’s a familiar genre. But this time the characters won’t
play their assigned roles. The idea of
big landmass, small population Australia (26 million), being welcomed by the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (600 million plus) is still being
pushed, though up a gradient that needs crampons.
The notion has been wandering around awhile but got new
direction in the weeks heading towards the March ASEAN ‘summit’ in Sydney, the
first of its kind in the Great South Land.
Former ABC foreign correspondent Graeme Dobell writing in
the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s The Strategist website has
been a principal matchmaker.
‘Australia’s dealings with the ten nations of ASEAN are set by
geography, flavoured by history, worked by diplomacy and driven by trade,’ he
enthused.
‘Throbbing always are the central concerns of power and strategy
and defence. The geography and the diplomacy and the power mean that Southeast
Asia must be a constant interest of Australia’s …
‘Joining ASEAN is the logical culmination of decades of
Australian regional engagement. ASEAN membership would be an embrace of the
region in the service of our deepest interests.’
This was in February, when Australian politicians and other
newsmakers were reluctantly returning from their summer break, so the
commentary drew little notice.
Only when Australian journalist James Massola reporting for
Fairfax Press scored a pre-summit interview with Indonesian President Joko
‘Jokowi’ Widodo that the idea was given CPR.
When the leader of the world’s third largest democracy was asked
about Australia joining ASEAN he said
‘I think it’s a good idea.’ The
follow-up whether it would be backed by other countries drew a laugh and the
comment: ‘I don’t know.’
The pole vault from these throw-aways to headlines like
‘Indonesia wants Australia as full ASEAN member’ should be a Diplomacy IO1
example of cultural clumsiness. Jokowi
might well have given the same response to the question: ‘Should colonies be built on Mars?’
Massola is a newbie in Jakarta; the job used to be ‘Indonesian
correspondent’. Now it covers Southeast Asia – population more than 600
million.
Academics brought the hyperbole down with a thud. Foremost
was Aaron Connelly, research fellow at the Lowy Institute who tweeted: ‘Reality
check: Australia has not been invited to join ASEAN, and will not be invited to
join ASEAN in our lifetimes. Jokowi was offering a "Javanese
response," trying to be polite.’
(Another Javanese reply that perplexes outsiders is: ‘Why not?’
This doesn’t mean ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or even ‘maybe’.)
Writing
on The Conversation Dedi Dinarto from
Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University reminded that Australia was already in a
couple of big boys’ clubs where they talk guns and bombs - ANZUS (Australia,
New Zealand, United States Security Treaty and NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty
Organisation.
‘The
aggressive nature of these pacts goes against ASEAN’s non-interference
principle. ASEAN emphasises the absence of external military hostility as its
core principle,’ he said.
Then
there’s the rule of law and human rights abuses – issues which greatly trouble
Australians. They would not keep Mum in situations like Myanmar’s purging of
Rohingya; nor would they shut up about the sanctioned arbitrary killing of real
or imagined drug dealers in the Philippines (President Rodrigo Duterte didn’t
front the summit), or the widespread crushing of peaceful dissent in states
tracking their way into totalitarianism.
The
only imaginable benefit is that Australian officials could help prop up the
hotel bars following some of the hundreds of chatathons held every year. They could swap name cards, share golf tips
and keep personal numbers on speed-dial should trouble flare.
ASEAN
was created in 1967 as an anti-communist block. Today three members are Red
states - Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia,
the last two sticking close to China. Now the only common glue is geography.
There
are four ‘emerging’ democracies (Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and the
Philippines) two military dictatorships (Thailand and Myanmar) and one
authoritarian sultanate (Brunei). Apart from Thailand all were once ruled by
colonial powers.
Each
state is supposedly equal. All must approve applicants. This ensures Australia
can never join under the present arrangement as any one nation can veto.
The
rules insist on non-interference in each other’s internal affairs so the
statements issued after each meeting are gems in polishing thousands of words
to say nothing.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull,
who hosted the summit, avoided his culture’s directness and offered a more
Javanese reply to reporters’ questions about joining ASEAN: ‘I will look forward to discussing that
with President Jokowi if he raises it with me’.
Apparently he didn’t.
So
far, other members have not responded to Jokowi’s rubbery response, though
former Malaysian PM Mahatir Mohamad, in another Fairfax interview, thought
Australia in ASEAN might happen one day when Australia becomes ‘more Asian than
European.’
About
12 per cent of Australians have Asian ancestry; however ethnicity is no
guarantee of enthusiasm to recouple with the nation they fled.
Cambodian
PM Hun Sen was apparently unaware that in Australia violence leads to
prosecution, however important the perpetrator. He respected his hosts by
threatening to ‘beat’ those protesting against his presence at the summit. They
still waved their banners and shouted slogans, grateful they’re not in Phnom
Penh.
There’s
also no public enthusiasm. A Twitter straw poll has shown Indonesians and
Australians averse to the idea of Australia in ASEAN. This isn’t surprising;
despite all the goodwill statements at government level, Mohammad and Sri in
their Jakarta kampong are just as wary of their neighbour as Myrtle and Sam are
in a Sydney suburb.
So
what’s behind the Oz in ASEAN push?
Dobell reasons that ‘as
the geostrategic and geo-economic pressures build in Asia, ASEAN, as a
middle-power grouping, needs the extra middle-power heft offered by Australia and NZ.
This
would make sense if foreign affairs were conducted by white-coated social
scientists in an isolated lab sealed off from outside germs.
But
in a world where strategic groupings are subject to political realities
infected by different histories, cultures, perceptions and ideologies,
Australia in ASEAN is a dead duck. It just needs a quiet burial with no marker.
##
First published in On Line Opinion, 16 April 2018: http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=19674
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