Regionalism in Southeast Asia: A Bridge Too Far?

Summary

When historians from the near future write about Southeast Asia's passage through 1996, they may sketch out for their readers a number of common threads which, invisible at present, served to link seemingly unconnected events. For example, the progress of 1996 revealed a regional cohesion which seemed to march from strength to strength: ASEAN membership expansion, limited ASEAN free trade (the AFTA agreement), and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) security dialogue all continued without break. Path-breaking events, such as the first Asia-Europe Summit (ASEM), also brought leaders from fifteen European Union (EU) and ten Asian countries (including from all seven ASEAN member states) to Bangkok from 1–2 March. An ASEM Foreign Ministers’ meeting was planned for February 1997, in Singapore.

On the other hand, however, disquieting domestic events occurred in major regional countries while the increasing intensity of interplay between the region's major outside powers provided a dispiriting reminder, if any was needed, that Southeast Asia's prospects still rest on the outcome of familiar questions such as domestic stability and Asia-wide power struggles. Southeast Asia as a region has little direct influence over the outcome of these events. By definition, both problems — domestic political transitions or the chess play of Great Powers — lie mostly outside the regional calculus, at least as currently crafted.

Regional Hubris?

After the heady years following the 1991 Cambodian settlement, many reminders of the transience of regional diplomacy emerged during 1996. Indonesia's end-of-1995 understanding with Australia, (about which Indonesia's ASEAN partners — Brunei, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam — had no foreknowledge) was a significant departure from traditional Indonesian foreign policy and indicated less than full confidence in Southeast Asian regionalism by itself as an insurance against a resurgent China. Likewise, the Australian Liberal-National coalition government, elected on 2 March, moved to reassert the primacy of its security pact with the United States rather than rely just on co-operative security mechanisms.