ASEAN Faces Challenges in 2022

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian

It’s probably the international organization most Canadians don’t know about. But they should. The 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), formed in 1967, play a significant role in global economic and political affairs.

The countries are large (Indonesia, Malaysia) and small (Singapore); rich (Brunei) and poor (Laos); closely affiliated with the United States (Thailand, the Philippines) or much more aligned with China or Russia (Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam). They span a wide range of religious, cultural, and economic characteristics.

At this year’s ASEAN summit, held in Cambodia Nov.10-13, Prime Minister Trudeau travelled to Phnom Penh and addressed regional and global challenges with his counterparts.

Canada is in trade negotiations with the economically booming association and ASEAN as a bloc already makes up Canada’s sixth largest trading partner. “I am announcing concrete investments that are part of our commitment to this relationship,” he said, before listing $333 million in new funding for various programs.

But ASEAN’s future is problematic, plagued by geopolitical divisions, economic woes, and accusations it has failed to deliver any meaningful solution to the ongoing Myanmar crisis, which continues to prove a challenge.

Even taking the relatively easy decision not to invite Myanmar’s military leader, Min Aung Hlaing, to the annual meeting this year proved an ordeal for the member states. In 2017 the military of the predominantly Buddhist country began a sweeping campaign against its Rohingya Muslim minority in northern Rakhine State. More than 730,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh, while about 600,000 remain under oppressive rule in Myanmar.

ASEAN has urged Myanmar to implement a peace plan agreed to last year to halt a spiral of violence that has gripped the country since the military overthrew an elected government in February 2021. The plan includes engaging in constructive dialogue, and access for humanitarian aid and a special ASEAN envoy.

In October, the bloc said it remains committed to the so-called five-point peace consensus even as frustration grows among members over escalating violence in Myanmar.

Retno Marsudi, the foreign minister of Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim nation, which is due to chair the regional bloc summit next year, asserted that the blame for a lack of progress lies with the junta.

Singapore and Malaysia, and at times Brunei, all with large Muslim populations, backed Indonesia’s calls for strengthening the measures against Myanmar. However, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, all Buddhist nations, have been pushing back against the Indonesian proposal.

So traditions of non-interference in another member’s domestic affairs and consensus decision-making have become hindrances, when they were once strengths, particularly amid rising American-Chinese tensions in the region.

“We are seeing the end of ASEAN as Southeast Asia has known its regional organization,” remarked Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor at Thailand’s Chulalongkorn University.

“While it won’t be disbanded and will still be around,” he added, “what’s left of ASEAN as a relevant and central regional organization needs a cold and hard realignment.”

ASEAN was formed by five anti-Communist countries in 1967 and doubled in size by the end of the 1990s, accepting lesser developed countries. Praised for maintaining peace and providing the infrastructure to help several Southeast Asian countries join the world’s fastest growing economies, ASEAN is said to badly need an update.

Vietnam and the Philippines have been locked in territorial disputes with Beijing over the South China Sea for decades, yet ASEAN has yet to agree on a promised “Code of Conduct” with the Chinese government.

Its biggest challenge is to manage escalating tensions between the United States and China, but this is complicated by the varying allegiances of its members. Thailand and the Philippines are treaty allies of the United States, while Vietnam informally counts Washington as a security guarantor. On the other hand, Cambodia and Laos are seen as Beijing’s closest partners.

ASEAN and China did release a joint statement agreeing to “build a meaningful, substantive and mutually beneficial ASEAN-China Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, for peace, security, prosperity, and sustainable development.” Hopefully these are not just empty words.

“The weight of current regional tensions, primarily the Myanmar crisis and the South China Sea dispute, has been way too great for ASEAN to grapple with in its current institutional design,” maintains Mabda Haerunnisa Fajrilla Sidiq, a researcher at the Habibie Center, an Indonesian think-tank.

An idea making the rounds is for the bloc to return to a more traditional “ASEAN-5” model, where the association’s founders -- Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand -- take on greater power. That would exclude newcomers who joined in the 1990s, such as Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia.

However, an “ASEAN-5” reform would also exclude Vietnam, the region’s surging economic powerhouse and the country most at the center of its geopolitical fault lines. Also, Beijing would resist any attempt to push out its closest partners, although the United States would likely welcome such a move.

Meanwhile, ASEAN finally agreed to grant accession to Timor-Leste, or East Timor, the former Portuguese colony occupying half the island of Timor, which applied for membership after gaining independence from Indonesia in 2002.

One of the poorest countries in the world, East Timor was initially granted observer status. The region’s most democratic state, it tends to be aloof on the U.S.-China rivalry and might alter regional discussions on political issues. 

 

 

World Cup Host Qatar a Vile Pretender

 Henry Srebrnik, [Halifax] Chronicle Herald

I’m guessing many millions of Canadian had never heard of Qatar before now. But the small Persian Gulf state has changed all that, by hosting one of the planet’s great sports spectacles: the World Cup of soccer, sponsored by its international governing body, FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association).

For this small country, it is the culmination of 12 years of preparation and more than $200 billion in infrastructure spending.

Eight new stadiums have been built for the World Cup, including the 80,000-capacity Lusail Stadium, which is the biggest venue at the tournament and will host the final.

A soccer non-entity, Qatar also became only the second country to be awarded a FIFA World Cup despite having never even qualified for a previous one. It’s as if Canada were to host a world cricket match. But hundreds of the world’s finest soccer players and more than a million fans are now in the capital for the tournament.

The discovery in 1971 of the world’s largest gas field led to the transformation of Qatar, turning it into one of the wealthiest countries in the world -- the fourth richest in the world per capita -- and emboldening its leaders to see their nation not just as an appendage of its wealthier Persian Gulf neighbours.

Qataris account for just eleven per cent of the country’s total population, vastly outnumbered by the 2.4 million foreigners who live among them. They sit atop the social ladder, their status demonstrated by the expensive cars they drive, the season’s designer handbags that hang on the wrists of women, the soaring salaries and leading positions afforded to Qataris by state-funded institutions.

But Qatar’s position as the tournament host has not been without controversy. Reports by investigative journalists have linked the FIFA leadership with corruption, bribery, and vote-rigging. Multiple FIFA board members are alleged to have accepted bribes to swing the vote to Qatar. The country in effect “bought” the 2022 tournament.

As well, there were objections to Qatar’s political system. It is ruled by the House of Thani as a hereditary monarchy. The head of state and chief executive, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, the current emir, holds nearly all executive and legislative authority, as well as controlling the judiciary.

But most criticism of Qatar has revolved around its extremely poor human rights record, from the death of migrant workers and the conditions many have endured in Qatar, to LGBTQ and women’s rights in a country that criminalizes homosexuality.

Qatar relies on low-income workers from South Asia and Africa, who often work grueling hours for meager pay and sometimes face outright abuse. They are described, with only slight exaggeration, as slave labour. They are often banned from entering the malls where Qatari citizens purchase luxury goods and eat at western food outlets. Salaries depend on where you come from and which passport you hold.

London’s Guardian newspaper in February 2021 published the results of an investigation that concluded that 6,500 migrant workers had died in the country since the World Cup was awarded in 2010. Trade unions are prohibited and the media is strictly regulated so little of this is reported.

Qatar World Cup 2022 secretary general Hassan Al-Thawadi has disputed these figures. Asked if the 2022 tournament was “sportswashing,” he maintained that it “could not be further from the truth.” The Qatari government said in a statement that the mortality rate among these communities “is within the expected range for the size and demographics of the population.”

The emirate’s Preventive Security Department forces have arbitrarily arrested lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and subjected them to ill-treatment in detention, Human Rights Watch reported in October. As a requirement for their release, security forces mandated that transgender women detainees attend conversion therapy sessions at a government-sponsored “behavioural healthcare” centre.

Qatari officials have bristled at much of the criticism, arguing that the country is being unfairly singled out in a manner that suggests an undercurrent of racism.

Hosting soccer’s premier event in an Arab and Muslim-majority country for the first time “is a truly historical moment and an opportunity to break stereotypes about our region,” Qatar’s foreign minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, asserted.

Qatar wants to increase its international footprint, particularly in the Middle East. For example, it funds the influential Al Jazeera television network, founded in 1996, which broadcasts worldwide. The bid to host the World Cup was another step in this quest, one component of a much broader strategy intending to position Qatar as a significant regional actor.

 

The Challenges Facing the ASEAN Alliance

  By Henry Srebrnik, [Saint John, N.B.] Telegraph-Journal

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attended a flurry of international meetings across four countries this month. It started on Nov. 12 in Phnom Penh, Cambodia for a leaders’ meeting at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit.

Canada is in trade negotiations with the 10-country bloc, which makes up Canada’s sixth largest trading partner, and Trudeau announced $333 million in new funding for various programs.

ASEAN membership has proven stable and mutually beneficial despite the diversity of its members. They are large (Indonesia, Malaysia) and small (Singapore); rich (Brunei) and poor (Laos); closely affiliated with the United States (Thailand, the Philippines) or much more aligned with China or Russia (Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam). They span a wide range of religious, cultural, and economic characteristics.

ASEAN has finally agreed to grant accession to Timor-Leste, or East Timor, the nation occupying half the island of Timor, which applied for membership after gaining independence from Indonesia in 2002.

When ASEAN was formed in 1967, the nations of Southeast Asia had been riven by disputes. Indonesia and Malaysia had fought a low-grade border war on the island of Borneo, and Malaysia and the Philippines were also at loggerheads over conflicting territorial claims. War still raged in nearby Indochina, threatening the stability of the entire region.

At the initiative of Foreign Minister Thanat Khoman of Thailand, he and his counterparts from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore convened to explore the creation of an organization that would enable these neighbors to strengthen their regional relationships, bring peace and prosperity to their citizens, and avoid open conflict when disagreements arose.

At the conclusion of the summit, the ministers signed what became known as the Bangkok Declaration, announcing the formation of ASEAN. Then, starting in 1976, ASEAN heads of state began attending summits, and they also created a secretariat whose leadership also passes among its members.

In 1992, the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA) was signed, leading to the phased elimination of tariffs and customs duties on trade between the countries and in 2009, an ASEAN human rights body was established. ASEAN began to engage other nations and regional groups as a bloc, signing free trade agreements with Australia, New Zealand, China, India, and South Korea.

But ASEAN now struggles to remain effective in an increasingly polarized world. It has fashioned itself as a zone of peace and neutrality, where its member states seek consensus and avoid criticizing each other. Its lack of any process for enforcing decisions on members reflects this mindset.

However, in the last decade, China’s occupation and military development of reef islands in the South China Sea has brought Beijing into direct conflict with ASEAN members Vietnam and the Philippines. Attempts to get China to agree to a “code of conduct” by ASEAN in the disputed areas have gone nowhere.

Beijing has simply stalled negotiations for 20 years. It also dismissed a ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague in 2016 that its claims are invalid.

It has been just as evasive on problems caused by its large-scale damming of the Mekong River, whose source is in Tibet and which flows through or borders five ASEAN countries. The river is a major trade route between western China and Southeast Asia.

China has effectively destroyed ASEAN unity by picking off smaller states, such as Laos and Cambodia, which are now so dependent on Beijing’s largesse that they are more or less client states.

Even the host of next year’s summit, Indonesia, the largest ASEAN state and the one with the region’s most China-wary foreign policy, has under President Joko Widodo eagerly sought Chinese investment, loans and technology.

Meanwhile, violence in Myanmar continues to cast a shadow over ASEAN. There was no consensus over how to pressure Myanmar to comply with a five-step proposal for peace in the country. Since seizing power in a military coup in February 2021, its ruling junta has been banned from participating in ASEAN events.

In 2017 the military of the predominantly Buddhist country also began a sweeping campaign against its Rohingya Muslim minority. More than 730,000 Rohingya fled to Bangladesh, while about 600,000 remain under oppressive rule in Myanmar.

In an effort to end the violence, the bloc’s plan, which Myanmar initially agreed to but has shown no willingness to implement, includes calls for the immediate cessation of fighting, mediation by a special ASEAN envoy, provision of humanitarian aid, and a visit to the country by the envoy to meet all sides for dialogue.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, whose country is the world largest Muslim state, takes the bloc’s rotating chair next year. He has proposed broadening the ban on Myanmar leaders beyond summits, something urged by human rights groups.

“Indonesia is deeply disappointed the situation in Myanmar is worsening,” he stated. “We must not allow the situation in Myanmar to define ASEAN.”

Singapore and Malaysia, and at times Brunei, all with large Muslim populations, backed Indonesia’s calls for strengthening the measures against Myanmar. However, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos, all Buddhist nations, have been pushing back against the Indonesian proposal. It won’t be easy.