Speech By Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed, Senior Minister Of State For Foreign Affairs At The Official Opening Of The Asean 40th Anniversary Conference, "Ideas And Institutions: Building An Asean Community", 31 July 2007

Speech By Mr Zainul Abidin Rasheed, Senior Minister Of State For Foreign Affairs And Mayor Of North East Community Development Council, At The Official Opening Of The Asean 40th Anniversary Conference, "Ideas And Institutions: Building An Asean Community", 31 July 2007

Ladies and Gentleman,

2007 is a special year for ASEAN. It celebrates its 40th anniversary this year, and as we speak, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers, Dialogue Partners and ASEAN Regional Forum member countries are gathered in Manila for a series of meetings.

So where is ASEAN today, 40 years after its founding? Looking back at four decades of its existence, can we say that ASEAN has been relevant? We often hear criticisms of ASEAN being inefficient and ineffective; Detractors further argue that ASEAN simply sweeps contentious issues under the carpet, so its numerous meetings are merely "talk shops" that do not address pressing regional and international issues. Is ASEAN really in such a dismal state?

I don't believe so. The mere fact that we are holding a Conference on ASEAN today is evidence that ASEAN, despite its perceived flaws and inadequacies, still matters. But what role does ASEAN play?

Ladies and Gentlemen,

If we look back a little, we may recall that ASEAN began as an association of five countries - Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand - seeking to build peace under tumultuous circumstances. With the Cold War as a backdrop, Southeast Asia was plagued by internal conflicts and regional insecurities in the 1960s. Indonesia had just ended Konfrontasi with Malaysia and Singapore, the Philippines and Malaysia were disputing over the Sabah district, and tensions were high between Malaysia and the newly independent Singapore.

These tensions and conflicts did not disappear with the establishment of ASEAN. However, what I find remarkable is the fact that these conflicts have never escalated to military confrontations. While ASEAN has not "resolved" these issues (and indeed, such insecurities may never be resolved), it has successfully managed relations between Southeast Asian countries. Not only has there never been a war between ASEAN countries in our 40 year history, cooperation within ASEAN today is thriving and expanding. ASEAN is not about conflict resolution. The 'ASEAN way' is about confidence building, and this is critical to prevent conflicts. This has clearly worked.

In fact, we have done well enough to expand our confidence building exercise beyond Southeast Asian countries. ASEAN today contributes to the peace and security of the wider region. The ASEAN Regional Forum, or the ARF, is an Asia-Pacific region-wide platform for security cooperation. Initiated by ASEAN in 1994, it now encompasses 26 countries, including major powers such as the US, Russia, Japan, China and India. The ARF has helped to build trust and promote greater mutual understanding. In fact, ARF is gradually maturing beyond confidence building and is embarking on concrete cooperation like joint exercises.

Turning to the economic aspect, I daresay ASEAN has come a long way since the early days of the 70s and 80s, when economic cooperation was merely tentative. 1992 was a turning point for ASEAN; at the Summit in Singapore that year, ASEAN leaders agreed to work toward the establishment of an ASEAN Free Trade Area, or AFTA. Over the last decade, ASEAN member countries have managed to lower the level of intra-regional tariffs. We have implemented the Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) Scheme for the free trade area. More than 99 percent of the products targeted in this scheme have been brought down to the 0-5 percent tariff range among Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia are expected to fulfill their AFTA obligations within the next 3 years.

But ASEAN has moved even further beyond these initial hopes and visions. Today, we strive to build an ASEAN Community, consisting of three pillars - security, economic and socio-cultural. We are drafting a Charter, a milestone document which will bring ASEAN cooperation to a new plane. The Charter hopes to transform ASEAN into a more effective rules-based organization; not only will it reinforce the commitment of individual member countries to take ASEAN seriously, it aims to strengthen the ASEAN Secretariat and increase coordination among various ASEAN institutions.

We will also sign an Economic Blueprint, a legally binding document which will commit member countries to specific targets and goals in the realization of an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015. It is only by successfully integrating our economies can ASEAN become a seamless market and production base with the requisite size and weight to face up to the powerhouses of China and India.

Not forgetting the socio-cultural facet, ASEAN will continue to increase people-to-people interaction and promote cultural understanding between ASEAN countries. We want to build an ASEAN Community that our people can identify with and are proud of. With the Charter in place soon, ASEAN will be more cohesive. Indeed ASEAN will never be the same again.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I have only provided you with a snapshot of ASEAN over 40 years, but I trust you will agree with me that ASEAN today is not only relevant but a dynamic regional organization that has much to contribute to the security, prosperity and well-being, not just of its people, but of the wider East Asian region.

I would like to congratulate the organizers, the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) and the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), for initiating this conference on the occasion of ASEAN's 40th anniversary. On behalf of one and all, I wish ASEAN well in its endeavours for the coming years.

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