Showing posts with label ASEAN. Show all posts

Aug 9, 2010

New Asean Chair in 2011 Raises Expectations

By SAW YAN NAING

Monday, August 9, 2010

JAKARTA—Indonesia will take over the chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in 2011, and many observers have high expectations from the region's largest democracy.

Some believe that Indonesia will be a good Asean chair because the nation is now viewed by many to be a model country as a defender of human rights within the Asean grouping.

Thung Ju Lan, a professor at the Research Center for Society and Culture in the Indonesia Institute of Science, told The Irrawaddy in Jakarta that Indonesia can be a catalyst to find a common platform for the rest of Asean members, especially in regard to Burma improving its human rights record.

Sources within Asean in Bangkok also told The Irrawaddy that when Indonesia becomes Asean chair, it may actively pressure the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) to push Burma to improve its human rights record and t0 work harder on democratic reform.

During the Asean summit in Hanoi last month, Asean Deputy Secretary-General Bagas Hapsoro told the Jakarta Post that he wished to see Jakarta become the “Brussels of the East,” increasing in power and relevance under the 2008 Asean Charter.

“There will be a lot of meetings, not only in Jakarta but also in other cities,” said Bagas, when Indonesia becomes the host of Asean.

Some believe that Indonesia’s role is set to increase further, becoming a regional center for economic and diplomatic activity, since the Asean office is based in Jakarta.

Other observers, however, have raised concerns about the expectations of the secretariat’s capability to facilitate the bloc’s vision of making Asean states a fully integrated community by 2015.

Addressing the issue of multi-cultural differences and the various needs of ethnic minorities, Thung Ju Lan, said, "The first thing we need is to try to understand the differences and respect them."

Some observers also noted that Asean's core principle of non-interference in a member country's internal affairs is a de facto Asean element that has been used by the Burmese military regime since 1962 to avoid censure and deflect criticism.

Anggara, who uses one name, a humarn rights advocate and lawyer who is executive director of the Indonesian Advocates Association in Jakarta, told The Irrawaddy that his country needed to somehow redefine the non-interference principle in order to promote human rights more effectively.

At the recent 16th Asean summit in Hanoi, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said the bloc wanted very much to see the Burmese election attain international recognition and credibility.

In March 2010, during his visit to Burma, Marty Natalegawa told his Burmese counterpart, Nyan Win, in Naypyidaw that Jakarta expected the regime to “uphold its commitment to have an election that allows all parties to take part.”
Some observers have said change will come slowly in Burma and it will come from within despite the Burmese military regime's suppression of democracy.

An Indonesian human rights defender, Rafendi Djamin, who is a representative of Indonesia to the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), said Burma's future is not guaranteed to improve after its planned election.

“There will be a lot of risk,” he said. “ And the country will have to find a way to deal with difficult situations. The more repressive the regime is, the more you need smart people to be able to sustain the [democracy] movement.”

Jan 12, 2010

The Cambodia-Thailand Conflict: A Test for ASEAN

Image via Wikipedia

by Sokbunthoeun So

Asia Pacific Bulletin, No. 44

Publisher: Washington, D.C.: East-West Center in Washington
Publication Date: December 10, 2009
Binding: electronic
Pages: 2
Free Download: PDF

Abstract

The current conflict between Cambodia and Thailand, both members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), provides a test case for ASEAN to act as a key player in resolving disputes among its members. A failure by ASEAN to do so would reduce its credibility and impede the realization of an ASEAN community by 2015. Sokbunthoeun So discusses the Cambodian-Thai conflict and the implications for ASEAN.

Dec 28, 2009

In Southeast Asia, Unease Over Free Trade Zone

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By LIZ GOOCH

KUALA LUMPUR — When the clock strikes midnight on New Year’s Eve, China and 10 Southeast Asian nations will usher in the world’s third-largest free trade area. While many industries are eager for tariffs to fall on everything from textiles and rubber to vegetable oils and steel, a few are nervously waiting to see whether the agreement will mean boom or bust for their businesses.

Trade between China and the 10 states that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has soared in recent years, to $192.5 billion in 2008, from $59.6 billion in 2003. The new free trade zone, which will remove tariffs on 90 percent of traded goods, is expected to increase that commerce still more.

The zone will rank behind only the European Economic Area and the North American Free Trade Area in trade volume. It will encompass 1.9 billion people. The free trade area is expected to help Asean countries increase exports, particularly those with commodities that resource-hungry China desperately wants.

The China-Asean free trade area has faced less vocal opposition than the European and North American zones, perhaps because existing tariffs were already low and because it is unlikely to alter commerce patterns radically, analysts say.

However, some manufacturers in Southeast Asia are concerned that cheap Chinese goods may flood their markets, once import taxes are removed, making it more difficult for them to retain or increase their local market shares. Indonesia is so worried that it plans to ask for a delay in removing tariffs from some items like steel products, textiles, petrochemicals and electronics.

“Not everyone in Asean sees this F.T.A. as a plus,” said Sothirak Pou, a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

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Asean and China have gradually reduced many tariffs in recent years. However, under the free trade agreement — which was signed in 2002 — China, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei will have to remove almost all tariffs in 2010.

Asean’s newest members — Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar — will gradually reduce tariffs in coming years and must eliminate them entirely by 2015.

Most of the goods that will become tariff-free in January — including manufactured items — are currently subject to import taxes of about 5 percent. Some agricultural products and parts for motor vehicles and heavy machinery will still face tariffs in 2010, but those will gradually be phased out.

In recent years, China has overtaken the United States to become Asean’s third-largest trading partner after Japan and the European Union. The overall trade balance has shifted slightly in China’s favor, although there are significant differences among Southeast Asian countries’ trade balances, said Thomas Kaegi, head of macroeconomic research for the Asia-Pacific region at UBS Wealth Management Research.

Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand have only small trade deficits with China, while Vietnam’s has grown substantially in recent years. In 2008, Vietnam exported items worth $4.5 billion to China but imported about $15.7 billion worth of Chinese goods.

In Indonesia, the textile and steel industries are particularly nervous about the lifting of tariffs, prompting the government to say that it would ask for a delay on some provisions. No time frame for submitting the request was given, but the Asean secretariat said it had not yet received an official request.

While competing with more Chinese imports may pose new challenges for Asean manufacturers, analysts say increasing their access to the 1.3 billion people of China could produce significant benefits.

Rodolfo Severino, who was secretary general of Asean from 1998 to 2002, identified Malaysia — which already exports palm oil, rubber and natural gas to China — as one of the countries that might benefit most from the removal of tariffs.

But nations like Vietnam that focus on the production of cheap consumer goods are more likely to be hurt, said Mr. Severino, head of the Asean Studies Center at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.

Those countries may need to look for new export products and identify new niche markets, he said: “This is the nature of competition.”

Song Hong, an economist, expects that China will import more agricultural goods, like tropical fruit, from countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam when the trade area takes effect. That could hurt Chinese farmers in southern provinces like Guangxi and Yunnan, said Mr. Song, director of the trade research division at the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing.

Mr. Sothirak, who was Cambodia’s minister of industry, mines and energy from 1993 to 1998, said the removal of tariffs might help increase Cambodia’s agricultural exports to China. Cambodia needs to diversify its export markets because its exports to the United States and Europe have declined, he said.

While he does not hold much hope that Cambodian textile exports would be able to compete with China’s highly developed garment industry, he said he believed the free trade area might entice more Chinese garment factories to set up operations in Cambodia, where production costs and labor are cheaper.

Pushpanathan Sundram, deputy secretary general of Asean for Asean Economic Community, acknowledged that there would be “some costs involved” for some countries when the free trade area took effect, but he said he believed China and Asean would “mutually benefit.”

Despite the expectations for increasing trade, Mr. Severino predicted that the introduction of the trade zone would not be a “breakthrough event” setting off a dramatic surge in commerce come January.

“There are many factors that traders and investors consider, and the trend has been going this way anyway,” he said. “What this does is to send out good signals and show the determination of governments to make things easier.”

Oct 24, 2009

First day of ASEAN summit hits snags on human rights, other issues - washingtonpost.com

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By Tim Johnston and Kevin Brown
Saturday, October 24, 2009

HUA HIN, THAILAND -- Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations were supposed to celebrate the inauguration of the group's new human rights body as they met Friday, but rifts over human rights, trade and politics marred the first day of the region's annual summit.

Five member states -- Burma, Cambodia, Laos, the Philippines and Singapore -- refused to meet the five individuals chosen by civil rights groups to represent their countries.

"I am very disappointed, and I see this as not only a rejection of me personally and the organization I represent, but as a rejection of the democratic process in the region," said Sister Crescencia Lucero, the Franciscan nun who was to have been the Philippines representative.

The association's Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights, one of the central elements of the legally binding ASEAN Charter signed last year, disappointed many rights advocates when it was limited to the promotion rather than the protection of human rights.

Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Thai prime minister and current ASEAN chairman, tried to put a positive gloss on the dispute.

"For members of civil society, you should be assured that you now have a partner with which to work," he said.

Nongovernmental groups have portrayed the disagreement as a struggle for the soul of ASEAN: Is it, as Vejjajiva described in his opening statement, a "people-centered" community or, as its critics allege, an uncritical club for regional governments, some of which, such as Burma and Cambodia, are regularly accused of human rights abuses?

ASEAN is caught between its drive for greater integration and international relevance, and the principle of noninterference in the internal affairs of other member states, but bilateral relations are a recurrent problem.

Regional politicians sometimes cite the European Union as their model, but their ambitions risk running aground on the vast political and social differences between the states, which range from the absolute monarchy of Brunei to the communist governments of Vietnam and Laos.

Aug 4, 2009

ASEAN Commision on Human Rights and Beyond

The ASEAN Inter-Governmental Commission on Human Rights and Beyond

by Hao Duy Phan

Asia Pacific Bulletin, No. 40

Publisher: Washington, D.C.: East-West Center in Washington
Publication Date: July 20, 2009
Binding: electronic
Pages: 2
Free Download: PDF

Abstract

More than forty years after its foundation, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is on the verge of establishing a human rights body. On July 20, 2009, the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting adopted the Terms of Reference for the ASEAN Inter-Governmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR). Hao Duy Phan discusses the implications of AICHR and whether the body will be adequate and effective in responding to major human rights problems in the region.

Jul 24, 2009

Asia Welcomes Return of US

Following years of relative neglect by Washington, Mrs Clinton (center) signed a landmark friendship pact with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the Thai resort island of Phuket. --PHOTO: AP

BANGKOK - EAST Asian nations will broadly welcome US moves to reengage with the region, with the world's most powerful country offering a counterweight to China's growing clout, analysts and diplomats said.

Suspicions about China's hegemonic aims have also added to satisfaction at Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's announcement during the region's biggest security forum this week that the 'United States is back'.

Following years of relative neglect by Washington, Mrs Clinton signed a landmark friendship pact with the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the Thai resort island of Phuket.

While communist Vietnam and Laos and former communist Cambodia may have reservations about the increased US involvement, staunch allies such as Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore are glad to see Washington back in play, analysts said.

'The United States does not want to be perceived to be ceding influence in the region,' John Harrison, a security analyst at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, told AFP.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo said in his opening remarks to Mrs Clinton on Wednesday that the United States is the 'key pillar for stability in the region in the 21st century'.

'The US is therefore an integral part of our past, our present and our future,' he said, adding that the region's countries 'appreciate the gestures you have made.' These included actually attending the broader, 27-member ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) that also groups the United States, China, Japan, Russia, South and North Korea and others - her predecessor Condoleezza Rice missed two.

Philippine Foreign Secretary Alberto Romulo said that the signing of the treaty of amity and understanding on Wednesday - six years after China inked the pact - was a 'very positive and affirmative sign.'

'This means they (Washington) will get engaged with all the issues pertaining not only to ASEAN but to northeast Asia and Asia. The US wants to get engaged and therefore this is good,' he said. -- AFP

Jul 23, 2009

Clinton Warns North Korea and Myanmar May Be Sharing Nuclear Technology

By MARK LANDLER and DAVID E. SANGER

PHUKET, Thailand — Stiffening the American line against Iran, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned Wednesday that the United States would consider extending a “defense umbrella” over the Middle East if the country continued to defy international demands that it halt work that could lead to nuclear weapons.

While such a defensive shield has long been assumed, administration officials in Washington acknowledged Wednesday that no senior official had ever publicly discussed it. Some of the officials said the timing of Mrs. Clinton’s remarks reflected a growing sense that President Obama needed to signal to Tehran that its nuclear ambitions could be countered militarily, as well as diplomatically.

It also signified increasing concern in Washington that other Middle East states — notably Saudi Arabia and Egypt — might be tempted to pursue their own nuclear programs for fear Iran was growing closer to realizing its presumed nuclear ambitions.

Mrs. Clinton later clarified her comments on Iran, delivered in advance of a regional meeting here, saying her warning that the United States might create such an umbrella did not represent any backing away from the Obama administration’s position that it must prevent Tehran from obtaining a bomb capability. But her words suggested that the administration was developing a strategy should all efforts at negotiation fail.

Her statement also came as Iran’s internal divisions and crackdown on post-election protests have complicated Mr. Obama’s pledge to “engage” Iran directly. Iranian officials have hinted that they will present new proposals on the nuclear program, and American officials have said their offers to negotiate stand.

Speaking during a televised town hall meeting in Bangkok, Mrs. Clinton said, “We want Iran to calculate what I think is a fair assessment, that if the U.S. extends a defense umbrella over the region, if we do even more to support the military capacity of those in the gulf, it’s unlikely that Iran will be any stronger or safer, because they won’t be able to intimidate and dominate, as they apparently believe they can, once they have a nuclear weapon.”

Asked about Mrs. Clinton’s comments, Sir Nigel Sheinwald, the British ambassador to the United States, said, “I don’t think it should be read as an acceptance of an Iranian nuclear weapon” but rather as a statement intended to “reassure our partners in the gulf.”

A senior White House official said he believed that Mrs. Clinton was speaking for herself and that she was, as she insisted, restating existing policy.

Mrs. Clinton’s invocation of a defense umbrella is reminiscent of the so-called nuclear umbrella that Washington extends to its Asian allies: implicitly, the promise of an American reprisal if they are attacked by nuclear weapons. But she did not use the term nuclear, and a senior State Department official cautioned that her remarks should not be interpreted to mean that.

After meeting the foreign ministers of China, Russia, Japan and South Korea, Mrs. Clinton also said that the United States would not offer new incentives to North Korea to return to negotiations. She said all of the other nations that had engaged in talks with North Korea in the past five years were united in demanding that North Korea undertake a “complete and irreversible denuclearization” before receiving any economic or political incentives from them.

She did not detail the steps that would be part of such a process, though she confirmed that they could include the disabling of the Yongbyon nuclear complex. Last year, North Korea began to dismantle that complex, where it runs a nuclear reactor and reprocess fuel rods to recover plutonium, but it vowed in June to restart production there.

The United States has had an uncharacteristically visible presence at this gathering of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean. It signed a friendship treaty with Asean’s 10 members and called on one country, Myanmar, to release the imprisoned pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi.

Israel’s minister of intelligence and atomic energy, Dan Meridor, told Israeli Army radio: “I was not thrilled to hear the American statement from yesterday that they will protect their allies with a nuclear umbrella, as if they have already come to terms with a nuclear Iran. I think that’s a mistake.”

Mrs. Clinton said she was trying to make even starker the choice Iran faced if it did not agree to abandon its program.

The administration has talked about bolstering the military capacity of Iran’s neighbors in the Persian Gulf so they could better meet the threat of a heavily armed Iran. It has also defended the proposed missile defense system in Eastern Europe as a potential shield against Iran.

“It faces the prospect, if it pursues nuclear weapons, of sparking an arms race in the region,” Mrs. Clinton said. “That should affect the calculation of what Iran intends to do, and what it believes is in its national security interest.”

On North Korea, Mrs. Clinton tried to project a united front, saying that China, Russia, Japan and South Korea had pledged to carry out the United Nations sanctions adopted in June against the North after its recent nuclear and missile tests.

Mrs. Clinton also reiterated concerns that North Korea might be transferring nuclear technology to Myanmar, which American officials refer to by its former name, Burma. She is to deliver a statement on North Korea on Thursday. In an excerpt provided to reporters, the tone remained unyielding, but the United States pledged to give North Korea “significant economic and energy assistance” if it undertook a verifiable denuclearization.

At the ministers meeting, Mrs. Clinton demanded that Myanmar release Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, who could face years in prison on charges that she violated her house arrest. “It’s so critical that she be released from this persecution that she has been under,” she said later at a news conference. “If she were released, that would open up opportunities, at least for my country, to expand our relationship with Burma, including investments in Burma.”

American officials met with diplomatic officials from Myanmar later to reiterate Mrs. Clinton’s demand.

Mark Landler reported from Phuket, Thailand, and David E. Sanger from Washington.

Jul 21, 2009

Human Rights Groups Give Cautious Backing to New ASEAN Rights Commission

By Ron Corben
Bangkok
21 July 2009

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Rights groups have given cautious backing to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' new human rights commission. Civic groups hope to take a greater role in the wider human rights debate across the region.

Rights groups say Southeast Asia has entered a new era in promoting human rights after the foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations endorsed a new rights commission.

"There is a point of no return for ASEAN," said Rafendi Djamin, the coordinator for Indonesia's Coalition for International Human Rights Advocacy. "The charter is already there, adopted ratified and charter's deep roots principles of human roots. Any member state of that charter cannot run away from this obligation. They will have to deal with this - they will have to talk about this among themselves, so this is the basis of the optimism that I have."

The ASEAN foreign ministers endorsed the plan Monday at their meeting in Phuket, Thailand.

However, some activists are disappointed by Burma's efforts to water down the human rights commission. The commission will have no power to protect human rights or punish states that abuse rights. Its mission now simply is to promote the idea of human rights.

Sinapan Samdorai, from the Task Force on ASEAN Migrant Workers in Singapore, says Burma resisted any requirements that states protect human rights. But Samdorai says the commission will eventually take a more protective role.

"I think, as they say, it's an evolutionary process, it will take at least five years before anything gets done in terms of protection at this stage. I think there is a possibility it will evolve and they promised an evolutionary process," he said.

Yuyun Wahyuningrum, East Asia program manager for rights group Forum Asia

Several ASEAN governments have openly criticized Burma's lack of progress in human rights and political reform. The military government holds more than 2,000 political prisoners, including opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Rights groups also welcomed the wider role for civic groups in the rights debate. Under the commission, labor unions also will have a role in promoting rights for workers and migrants.

Yuyun Wahyuningrum, East Asia program manager for the rights group Forum Asia, says society needs to ensure the highest standards are met in the commission's terms of reference.

Ministers and officials Tuesday are discussing the final terms of reference for establishing the rights commission. Final agreement is due to take place at the next ASEAN leaders' summit in October.

Mar 5, 2009

Asian and ASEAN 'Tigers' Besieged

Two tough analytic comparative articles published today in the U.S. press nicely illustrate the worsening economic distress of the four Asian Tigers and key ASEAN hitherto thriving economies prior to the worsening global economic recession. Keith Bradsher reported his findings in The New York Times and Anthony Faiola in The Washington Post. Empowered in earlier years by strong export-oriented economies and stable profitable investments in industrialized countries, state sovereign wealth funds, state-owned corporations, private companies, and individual investors have suffered heavy losses almost across-the-board. Further anticipated drops in international trade will make matters worse in the ever-lengthening 'short-run.'

Outdated entries like Wikipedia's Economy of Singapore now read like very bad jokes. But ordinary Singaporeans are being officially reassured their government is on top of these so complex problems. Are you so confident as the Finance Minister ? Or do you feel more like the growing number of dubious expats? And what about this old lady who has no investments at all? I leave the abused maids, prostitutes, and beggars to your clicking fingers.