5 - The Evolution of Regional Organization

Summary

In Southeast Asia's international relations, the first two decades after World War II were characterized and shaped by nationalism, decolonization, great-power intervention and failed attempts at regional (mainly pan-Asian) cooperation. It is fair to say that attempts at regional cooperation played a marginal role in shaping international order and were overwhelmed by domestic politics on the one hand and externally determined Cold War geopolitics on the other. But the situation during the next two decades would be different. While the domestic strife characteristic of post-colonial states persisted and great-power rivalry continued to plague the region, Southeast Asia's international relations during the 1970s and 1980s would be marked chiefly by a dynamic involving the competing forces of regional conflict and cooperation. An important factor shaping this dynamic was the establishment of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 1967.

During this period, regionalism would have a paradoxical effect on Southeast Asia's unity and identity. On the one hand, it brought together to an unprecedented degree the non-communist Southeast Asian states under a political and security framework. This subregional framework was spurred by a collective quest for security and development in the face of common external and internal challenges. The outcome was the first viable regional organization in the history of Southeast Asia: ASEAN. On the other hand, regionalism reflected, and contributed to, the ideological polarization of Southeast Asia. The latter, in turn, generated an intense and wide-ranging pattern of regional conflict that engulfed the region for much of the 1970s and 1980s.

ASA and Maphilindo

At the beginning of the 1960s, the prospects for a viable regional organization in Southeast Asia looked bleak. Referring to Southeast Asia as the “Balkans of Asia”, the American scholar Albert Ravenholt observed that “increasingly, these eight newly-independent nations [Singapore was yet to be separated from Malaysia] and Thailand are drifting into the grip of petty nationalisms and jealousies, complete with border disputes and rivalries among their leaders”. Moreover, the continued dependence of regional countries on extraregional powers for protection against internal as well as external threats also served to undermine early attempts at regional organization. The strong security links of Thailand and the Philippines with the United States, and that of Malaysia and Singapore with Britain, made the idea of regional cooperation less urgent.