Mapping ASEAN

Achieving Peace, Prosperity, and Sustainability in Southeast Asia

David Carden, David L. Carden

• Publisher: Indiana University Press
• Year: 2019
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9780253045775
• Subtopic: Asian Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

For half a century, ten dynamic nations in Southeast Asia have been implementing a shared vision of economic growth, sustainable development, and cultural progress. Today, the economies of those nations are linked inextricably with the future of greater Asia as well as with the United States and the other Western countries. With authoritarianism and protectionism on the rise around the world and the catastrophic effects of global warming making action urgent, the nations that form the Association of Southeast Asia Nations are more relevant and under greater political and social stress than ever.

In these illuminating pages, David Carden, the first American resident ambassador to ASEAN, paints a vivid portrait of the regional and global cooperation required to meet today, and interconnected future. Carden takes us behind the scenes as the leaders of these ten nations work to prepare their countries and their region for the 21st century. Carden persuasively argues that the unfolding story of the ASEAN nations is a story for the entire worldthat we are all increasingly interdependent and confronted with the existential need to solve the same set of challenges.

1

Pivoting to Asia

I ARRIVED IN JAKARTA TO ASSUME MY POST AT A CRUCIAL moment. The establishment of the mission I’d been appointed to lead was part of the Obama administration’s rebalance toward Asia, which had a special focus on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The so-called pivot to Asia arose from the Obama administration recognizing that it was in the best interests of the United States to engage more deeply in the region. In part this was to maintain political security and economic growth. But other challenges faced by ASEAN were seen as having the potential to impact the United States. Among the shared risks and issues listed in US Senate Bill 2697 of the 109th Congress, which sought to create a US ambassador to ASEAN, were avian influenza and other diseases; environmental issues, including illegal logging and the preservation of biodiversity; promoting trade; and the need to combat global terror.¹ A Senate resolution the following year referenced additional goals, including addressing corruption and promoting transparency, economic growth, social progress, cultural development, regional peace and stability, adequate energy resources, and the education of ASEAN students in the United States.²

But by identifying these priorities, the Senate could not have been unmindful of other challenges that initially might have appeared to be confined to Southeast Asia but in fact also had the potential to adversely impact the United States: poor health care and educational systems; human and animal trafficking; natural disasters; inadequate governmental revenue to manage problems at the local level; tax avoidance; inadequate and immature institutions; low productivity; lack of rule of law; insufficient data and information to inform policy; pervasive poverty; income inequality; food, nutrition, and water insecurity; air and water pollution; and inadequate infrastructure and intellectual property protection.

President Obama recognized that multilateral organizations such as ASEAN could lead the way in creating new approaches to managing these and other issues and challenges. For this reason, early in the first term of his presidency, he moved to strengthen multilateral connections and promote international norms. In doing so, he questioned and leaned hard against long-standing orthodoxies founded on unilateral and bilateral initiatives that don’t offer the same opportunities for achieving long-term success. President Obama also tried whenever possible to join with allies and other stakeholders in doing what needed to be done, knowing as he did that unilateral action would be far less likely to succeed. He understood the power of alliances to pursue common causes, especially with regard to shared challenges. Unfortunately, this is an approach the Trump administration does not appear to share. Many of its failures can be attributed to the current administration’s abandonment and weakening of multilateralism.

But President Obama would not have been able to engage the region the way that he did had it not been for the remarkable groundwork of several generations of ASEAN’s leaders, who wisely had set the stage for the US Mission to ASEAN (USASEAN) and other missions and embassies that are now on the scene. Ten of the countries with ASEAN ambassadors have been formally designated Dialogue Partners. At present, those ten are Australia, Canada, China, European Union, India, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Russia, and the United States. When I arrived in Jakarta in 2011, I was the first resident ambassador to the association from a non-ASEAN member state, although approximately forty-four other countries had “double-hatted” ambassadors to the association who were credentialed to one or more countries in the region. As of March 2018, there were thirteen resident ambassadors dedicated solely to the association, and an additional seventy-seven countries that had double-hatted ambassadors, bringing the total to ninety ambassadors credentialed to ASEAN.³ This dramatic increase in the number of ambassadors posted to ASEAN was made possible by long-standing, persistent ASEAN leadership over the course of fifty years.

ASEAN was founded in 1967 in Bangkok by five original member states—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand—in response to anxieties caused by the war in Vietnam and the potential spread of communism in Southeast Asia. After the initial organizational meeting, the association did not meet again until it convened in Bali in 1976, at which time it adopted its Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and the Declaration of ASEAN Concord, which called for member states to work together whenever possible to improve the lives of the region’s people and to lessen the chance of conflict. What followed was a period of slow but steady growth that promoted these objectives, leading eventually to the expansion of the association following the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Soviet Union.

By the end of the 1990s, ASEAN had increased its membership to the current ten by adding Brunei, Vietnam, Myanmar, Lao PDR, and Cambodia. During this time, the association took specific steps to integrate the region, including the creation of a Common Effective Preferential Tariff to lower barriers to trade among its members. It also worked to increase economic cooperation with China, Japan, and Korea, by creating a forum in 1996 for these so-called Plus Three nations to meet with ASEAN to discuss a range of issues. Following a financial crisis in the region in 1997, the Chiang Mai Initiative proposed even closer economic integration among the member states and Plus Three countries.

But despite all of these efforts and many others designed to further integration, ASEAN still lacked a comprehensive plan. Then, in 2003 in Bali, the association took a major step toward making one. Motivated by a number of factors, including the rise of China and India as economic powers and a concern for the region’s competitiveness, ASEAN’s leaders adopted the Bali Concord II. Bali II sought to integrate the region based on the establishment of three pillars: an ASEAN Economic Community with a single market and production base to be created by 2020; a sociocultural community to improve the development of human capacity, reduce unemployment, address environmental degradation, and manage disease; and a political security community to promote the peaceful resolution of disputes, enhance maritime cooperation, and cooperate on antiterrorism efforts.

In 2004, ASEAN and the Plus Three countries expanded the number of stakeholders with interests in the region by forming the East Asia Summit, an ASEAN-led group of then sixteen countries located in Asia Pacific. The creation of the EAS (which added the United States and Russia in 2011) expanded the number of countries participating in the conversation about how to address shared challenges in Asia Pacific and how to promote regional growth.

Despite all of these efforts, a significant issue remained for ASEAN: legal capacity. For the first forty years of its existence, ASEAN as an association was not a legal entity. This was ultimately determined to be a serious limitation. Among other things, it encumbered its members’ engagement with outside partners. For example, during this time period no ambassadors could be credentialed to the association, including by its own member states. This meant that work on regional issues was done exclusively in the capitals of the ASEAN countries and those of its Dialogue Partners.

This situation began to change in November 2007, when ASEAN adopted a charter. In anticipation of this event, in May 2006 the US Senate had passed a bill—sponsored by then Senators Obama, Biden, Kerry, and Lugar—to create the position of ambassador to ASEAN. The bill did not pass the House during the 2006 legislative session, but in June 2007, during the 110th Congress, Senate Resolution 110 was adopted, creating the position of ambassador to the association from the United States. On May 8, 2008, Scot Marciel became ASEAN’s first named ambassador. He was resident in Washington, DC, in part because he had no counterparts with whom to engage. ASEAN member states themselves hadn’t yet named ambassadors to the association.

Today, ASEAN is an organization that convenes almost two thousand meetings a year addressing a wide variety of shared opportunities and challenges. Those meetings are scheduled and informed by the dedicated staff of a secretariat in Jakarta that is organized along the lines of the three pillars defined by ASEAN’s leaders in the 2003 Bali Concord II. The secretary general of the association rotates among the member states every five years. The staff, which comes from all member states, numbers about three hundred.

Funding the secretariat is a continuing challenge, however, due to the ASEAN Charter’s requirement that contributions to the association be pro rata, rather than based on financial capacity. Thus, the poorer ASEAN countries set the financial contribution curve. Some believe the funding formula for the secretariat is intended to ensure that the association is underfunded, in order to keep it weak. They often cite the ASEAN member states’ anxieties regarding sovereignty. It’s true there’s a desire in the region to avoid anything that suggests the possibility of supranational authority. But the member states do accept financial assistance from the association’s Dialogue Partners, which historically have provided more funding than the members themselves. And the activities of the secretariat and the work of the ambassadors clearly reflect a growing understanding among many of ASEAN’s leaders that the borders that once defined and protected their respective countries are dissolving, eroded by globalization and their interdependency. These leaders understand the importance of the secretariat in addressing this situation.

ASEAN’s efforts to foster regional integration, including the work of the secretariat and its ambassadors, set the stage for the creation of USASEAN. President Obama, once cosponsor of the 2006 bill that first stated the need for an ambassador to the association, made the decision in 2010 to create a mission and send a resident ambassador. His decision was enthusiastically supported, both within the United States and in the region.

His selection of me to fill the post, however, was not universally well received. Perhaps this was due, in part, to the belief among the foreign policy community that the mission would face a challenge in working with the bilateral US ambassadors in the region. Thus, Ernie Bower, the director of the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a recognized expert on Southeast Asia, who later became a strong supporter of the work done by the mission, wrote before my nomination was announced, “Nominations that are coming but yet to be announced include the new US Ambassador to ASEAN—the first to be based in Jakarta. . . . He will have to share space with Scot Marciel’s team in the US Embassy in Jakarta and must be an uber-diplomat so he doesn’t step on the toes of his fellow chiefs of mission around the region.”⁴

I confess to being concerned when I first read these words, especially knowing as I did that they would have been even stronger had it been known at the time they were written that the president would nominate someone who was not a career diplomat. I also saw the possibility for friction that had been highlighted. But I took comfort in knowing that my position wouldn’t be administratively controlled by any of our embassies in the ASEAN member states or be in conflict with the responsibilities of my bilateral colleagues. For this reason, I believed the mission would represent no perceived threat to the respective authorities and portfolios of my bilateral colleagues. I also believed it was possible they could be convinced that the mission’s portfolio would complement those of our bilateral embassies in the region. In my view, USASEAN’s agenda focused on the human and natural systems that made up ASEAN’s multilateral agenda. And while some of the mission’s “behind the border” initiatives and programs were related to those systems, I saw possible benefits from our collective ability to engage with one another.

But when my appointment was announced, some in Washington were unconvinced I was the right choice. One reporter noted, “The choice of Carden, who has limited diplomatic expertise, came as a surprise to many in the Asia community that he now will be working with on a daily basis.” The reporter quotes Ernie Bower as saying, “We don’t know him. . . . I still don’t know the rationale for matching him up with this job.”⁵ One of my new colleagues in a senior position at the State Department initially thought my nomination was “a terrible idea,” apparently because I was a political appointee. Fortunately, he came to believe my personal connection to President Obama was a benefit, in part because it sent a strong message to the region that the Obama administration was committed to its pivot to Asia.

I understood those who had doubts about my appointment, but I believed their hesitation reflected a preference for known experts, personalities, approaches, and practices. Fortunately, the doubters dwindled and eventually became believers. Or so it seemed. One never knows such things for certain. What I can say is that many skeptics and most of the US ambassadors to the ASEAN member states became my close working partners and colleagues. Some became and remain good friends. Even so, there is no doubt that a few retained strong views as to the nature of our respective responsibilities—views that were the legacy of traditional diplomacy and a preference for protected portfolios. For this reason, among others, I made it one of my primary objectives to do all I could to ensure that I had a close working relationship with each of these colleagues. I also vowed to myself to cooperate and collaborate with them even if they attempted to undermine the work of the mission. At least one did.

My belief is that we succeeded in working together and in making one another more effective. But initially some of our bilateral ambassadors in the region were opposed to the mission’s work and were dismissive of our efforts to collaborate. Some even held that I couldn’t see government ministers and officials in the countries where they were posted unless I got their permission and they were present. This position was taken by some even with regard to officials in the region’s capitals who were responsible for their respective countries’ ASEAN portfolios. Given the mission’s responsibilities and the busy schedule we all kept, this was neither a necessary nor workable request. I successfully pushed back against their efforts. But to assuage their alleged concerns, I established a standing policy to invite them to any meetings I had in their countries. I realized USASEAN was a start-up and needed time to develop. Conflicts with my colleagues would not have been wise, and I avoided such disunity unless absolutely necessary.

Some of the tensions between and among USASEAN staff and my bilateral colleagues were neither administrative nor even due to the perceived potential of overlapping portfolios. It arose from my belief that the mission needed to focus on ASEAN’s systemic issues, whereas some of my bilateral colleagues believed the mission should focus only on more traditional diplomatic priorities that I viewed as being transactional. These colleagues initially considered certain issues that USASEAN was addressing—such as the health of the region’s fisheries, sustainable cities, human and animal trafficking, and the use of science to inform policy and provide tools to manage a myriad number of risks—as being a distraction from more important issues like trade and political security concerns, especially those relating to the South China Sea. But we at the mission thought that the long-term interests of the United States mirrored the long-term interests of the region, which were largely developmental.

We were also of the view that the systemic approach required us to work within the borders of each ASEAN member state. This led to some of my bilateral colleagues telling me I was “out of my lane” when we were engaging on issues within a particular country. But my belief was that many issues were within both the bilateral and multilateral portfolios because they were shared by the region. Food and water security and issues related to the South China Sea are examples. Sustainable cities is another. The mission’s focus on the redevelopment of Yangon offered an opportunity to demonstrate how thoughtful urban planning could inform the efforts of other cities in the region. It also enabled Embassy Yangon to advocate for the benefits that thoughtful redevelopment could provide to Myanmar. These issues and many others are examples of how multilateral and bilateral objectives coalesced.

The diplomatic architecture and relationships that resulted from the mission’s efforts were designed to help ASEAN address both behind-the-border and transborder challenges. USASEAN encouraged each member state to reassess its interests by recognizing that the states could not act alone, without regard for the opinions of others, because the ties that bound them together were now unbreakable. We made the case that individual interests often are not the most relevant, because they are imbedded in regional and global interests that must be addressed first, although we recognized there would be times when geography, power, or the nature of a particular issue would compel a country to pursue its own interests to the exclusion of others, at least for a short period of time. But eventually each country’s interests will need to be secondary to those of the borderless beyond if ASEAN and others are to avoid the tragedy of the commons.⁶

The USASEAN had some consi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: ASEAN’s Goals
• 1. Pivoting to Asia
• 2. Defining ASEAN’s Goals
• 3. Financial Capital
• 4. A Systems Approach to Achieving ASEAN’s Goals
• 5. People, Data, and Information
• 6. Institutions, Governance, and Rule of Law
• 7. Positioning ASEAN’s Economy for Success
• 8. Climate Change and the Environment
• 9. Public Health and Disease
• 10. China and the South China Sea
• 11. ASEAN’s Cities
• 12. Four Freedoms
• 13. The Role of the Private Sector
• 14. A New Diplomacy
• Conclusion
• Epilogue
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author