NEW YORK - At the United Nations, every General Assembly session in September is a virtual summit meeting judging by the heavy presence of a staggering array of heads of state and heads of government (they are two different political animals, with few exceptions like Sri Lanka and France, where you get two for the price of one).
But if the SAARC summit takes place early next month as scheduled -- security and regional politics permitting -- it will be the third time that Sri Lanka is playing host to a major South Asian talk-fest, the last two taking place in December 1991 and July 1998. Still, the mother of all summits was the fifth Non-Aligned Summit in Colombo in August 1976 when Sri Lanka presided over the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), through 1979, handing over the chair to Cuba.
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| SAARC leaders who attended last year’s summit in New Delhi took time off to watch the SAARC motorcross that was held to mark the occasion |
For a 23-year-old regional body, the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation is credited with several achievements, including the creation of the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA); a $300 million SAARC Development Fund for poverty alleviation; a SAARC food bank; and a proposed South Asian university. At the last summit in New Delhi, the India government made a unilateral declaration to allow duty-free imports of all goods from the five least developed countries (LDCs) of SAARC:
Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, and Afghanistan. (the other members of SAARC being India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka).
But unlike SAARC, the 41-year-old Association of Southeast Asian Nations (comprising Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) has been touted as the world's second most successful regional organisation, after the 27-member European Union (EU). And unlike the dominance of a single regional superpower -- like India in SAARC -- ASEAN has never been weighed down by a political heavyweight. As India moves forward into the ranks of one of the world's major industrial powers -- staking its claims for a place in the Group of Eight and a permanent seat in the Security Council -- its predominance will be even more pronounced in SAARC than ever before.
Unhindered by such constraints, the 10 economies of ASEAN are being integrated into a single economy, and by 2015 will become a common market and production base, with the free flow of goods, services, investments and skilled labour. Since SAARC is only 23 years old, compared with the 41-year-old ASEAN, a close comparison between the two may be grossly unfair. But still one cannot resist the political temptation to do so.
According to Tommy Koh of Singapore, ASEAN chair and an Ambassador-at-Large, the ASEAN charter will transform the regional body from a loose association into a rules-based organisation; establish an ASEAN human rights body; promote economic, political and socio-cultural integration; and commit itself to certain principles such as democracy, human rights, rule of law, good governance and constitutional government. In contrast, SAARC has a long way to go.
Kishore Mahbubani, a former Permanent Representative of Singapore to the UN and author of "The New Asian Hemisphere", is confident of the future success of ASEAN's regional economic integration. Asked how SAARC compares with ASEAN, he said: "Definitely, there's a future for SAARC. The health of every organisation reflects the degree of trust among its members. One of the strengths of ASEAN is that despite all the bilateral differences that exist between ASEAN states, they have sufficient trust and confidence in ASEAN as an organisation".
Within ASEAN, he said, there's also a realization now among all the member states that if they don't come together and develop deeper regional cooperation, ASEAN will lose out in the economic competition with China and India. This is also why ASEAN adopted the ASEAN charter. It is trying to promote greater regional economic integration.
But Mahbubani, who is currently dean and professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, makes a striking comparison between ASEAN and the European Union. In terms of regional economic integration, the EU is doing very well, he said. In fact, it has created a wonderful oasis of peace and security within Europe. In economic terms, the EU is a considered a super power of $17 trillion, and ASEAN is a mini-power of less than a trillion dollars.
"But look at the record in the field of diplomacy. Here, EU is a mini-power, and ASEAN is a super power," he boasts. "I am exaggerating, of course, but I am exaggerating, because I want to make a key point." If you look geographically around the EU, you can see it has failed to share its peace and prosperity with any of its neighbours -- whether in North Africa, the Middle East, the Balkans or the Caucuses. Essentially EU diplomacy has failed.
By contrast, Mahbubani argued, ASEAN has to function in the region with most of the world's greatest emerging powers. ASEAN is leading the process of integrating these new powers by creating new patterns of cooperation to bring together all the new rising powers. Starting with the ASEAN plus-three process, which includes China, Japan and Korea, it has now expanded to include the East Asian Summit, which has brought in India, Australia and New Zealand.
He says it is quite remarkable for a relatively weak organisation like ASEAN to provide the diplomatic initiatives to bring together the new great powers.
This is a remarkable achievement, he added. There is something even more remarkable about ASEAN's achievements, he said. "We are now moving in the 21st century from a mono-civilisational world to a multi-civilisational world."
The EU, after so many years of growth, remains purely a Christian club. It is still unable to admit one non-Christian member, even though Turkey has been knocking at its door for almost 20 to 30 years. The EU creates all kinds of excuses to keep Turkey out. By contrast, if you look at ASEAN, you will see within it, Hindus and Muslims, Buddhists and Christians, Confucianists and Taoists.
"We have so many different cultures within ASEAN. The fact that ASEAN can comfortably progress with so many cultures and civilisations shows that a regional organisation like ASEAN will be the role model for the rest of the world, as we move into a multi-civilisational world," he added.
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