Sri Lanka’s 57-year old dream
View(s):“There was also a last-minute hitch”, S.R. Nathan wrote further in his Memoirs published in 2011 under the title “An Unexpected Journey: Path to the Presidency”. Later S.R. Nathan became the sixth and longest-serving President in Singapore, serving two terms in office from 1999-2011.
“We were stunned”
The “last-minute hitch” that he referred to was an announcement by the Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, Tun Abdul Razak: Sri Lanka (at that time, Ceylon) would like to be a founding member of the organisation. The announcement stunned them! He revealed that the Malaysian Prime Minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman, had promised the then Prime Minister of Ceylon, Dudley Senanayake, about Sri Lanka’s admission to the organisation.
Although the geographical boundary of Southeast Asia towards its western border did not go beyond Burma (now, Myanmar) reluctantly, everybody decided to wait for the arrival of the application from Sri Lanka. The following quotation from S.R. Nathan’s Memoirs depicts what happened next:
“Nothing happened. The clock was ticking, and the Thais wanted the birth of the organisation to take place within a certain auspicious time. Before that deadline, the meeting was called to an order. Thanat Khoman (Foreign Minister of Thailand) then announced that the ministers had decided to call the organisation ‘ASEAN’ (Association of South East Asian Nations)…. Thus, a new regional organisation was born.” (p.351)
Why did Sri Lanka miss the opportunity to become a founding member of ASEAN, when they were ready to accept it? In later years, it was explained that this was as a result of the geopolitical situation by C. Gunasingham who was the High Commissioner of Sri Lanka to Singapore (1979-1983). Thai Foreign Minister, Thanat Khoman had communicated Sri Lanka’s potential ASEAN membership to Colombo, but he too never got a reply.
File picture of a recent ASEAN meeting.
Politics and geopolitics
Later, Thanat Khoman too had given a more elaborative analysis explaining that the Sri Lankan Prime Minister had come under pressure internally from Sri Lanka’s leftist parties and, externally from India, China and the USSR. There was also fear that Sri Lanka would be giving up its “non-aligned status’ in joining ASEAN. The “pressure” from all these facets should be understood in this context.
The UNP has always favoured a pro-Western and anti-Communist policy stance. But its coalition government during 1965-1970 was, somehow, not in a position to go against the currents and fully implement its free market policies towards liberalisation and global integration. It was a whole different world impacted upon by the Cold War between the US and the USSR, both internally
and externally.
Sri Lanka’s big neighbour India was a closed economy aligning with the USSR, while Sri Lanka too had been following the same path during 1956-1977. China was a Communist country which had not yet commenced its policy reforms. The USSR was the centre of the world’s socialist bloc that stood against the US-led capitalist bloc. Interestingly, today all these three countries are “Strategic Partners” of ASEAN, while both India and China have also signed FTAs with ASEAN.
Non-Aligned Movement
Sri Lanka’s desire to be a member of ASEAN has also been subject to opposition from some members of the Non-Aligned Movement, as per the Memoirs of S.R. Nathan. Sri Lanka was an active founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement at its establishment in 1961 when Sirimavo Bandaranaike was the Prime Minister of Sri Lanka. During her second term in office from 1970-1977, she became the Chairperson of the Movement and hosted its 5th Summit in Colombo.
Lee Kuan Yew, the late Prime Minister of Singapore had met Sirimavo Bandaranaike a few months after her 1970 election victory. He described her in his Singapore Story as “…a determined woman who believed in the non-aligned ideology” and explained to him how she favoured withdrawal of US troops from South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Lee Kuan Yew who had different foreign policy objectives, commented that “we could not subscribe to this high-minded ideology when it had serious consequences for our future” as Singapore would be gravely threatened if South Vietnam were to fall into the hands of the communists, spreading to Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia.
J.R. Jayewardene is reported to have said that there are only two non-aligned nations in the world – the US and the USSR. However, after his landslide victory in 1977 defeating Sirimavo Bandaranaike, he automatically became the Chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement though I am not sure if he was interested in it.
Recently, on 8th August 2023, President Ranil Wickremesinghe, graced the 56th ASEAN Day at the Embassy of Indonesia in Colombo as the Chief Guest. In his speech, he remarked that Sri Lanka’s “turning down the opportunity to join ASEAN led to a period of socialist economic policies and limited capital formations, hindering the country’s growth potential.”
Hopes, not given up
President J.R. Jayewardene who admired ASEAN and had close relations with Singapore and other Southeast Asian nations embarked upon Sri Lanka’s trade liberalisation programme in 1977. It was reported that in 1981, Sri Lanka’s Prime Minister R. Premadasa undertook an official ASEAN tour in Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, and expressed in Manila about Sri Lanka’s willingness to be a member of ASEAN.
In the early 1980s, geopolitics in the Indian Ocean were still dominated by pro-Communist and anti-Western ideology that was aligned with the USSR, while Sri Lanka had been the only country in South Asia moving in a different direction. Almost at the same time, in response to a proposal of Bangladesh for a South Asian regional association, Sri Lanka hosted the South Asia Forum which continued with a series of meetings to form SAARC in 1985. The progress in SAARC, however, came to a standstill after 2005.
Besides, during the latter times Sri Lanka’s geographical location outside Southeast Asia has become a major obstacle for Sri Lanka’s potential membership of ASEAN. Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister S. Rajaratnam had stated that Sri Lanka cannot be a full member of ASEAN on account of its location in South Asia but mentioned the possibility to become an “observer” or a “dialogue partner”. In fact, the ASEAN Charter as adopted at the 13th ASEAM Summit in 2007 included a clause restricting its membership to the countries located within Southeast Asia, ousting any hope for Sri Lanka to join it in the future.
Without giving up its 40-year old effort, in 2007 Sri Lanka joined the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and ASEAN’s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. In order to widen and deepen the ASEAN’s relations with other countries, it too introduced different categories of formal status to external parties such as Dialogue Partners, Sectoral Dialogue Partners, and Development Partners. In a renewed attempt to strengthen economic integration and cooperation with ASEAN, Sri Lanka too applied for a Sectoral Dialogue Partnership in 2019.
Another opportunity
After eight years of preparation at the ASEAN, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was signed on 15th November 2020 at a virtual ASEAN Summit held in Vietnam and became effective on 1st January 2022. It is an FTA among the 10 ASEAN member countries and five ASEAN-FTA partner countries – Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. From 1st July 2023, it was open for other countries in the Asia-Pacific region to accede to RCEP. Sri Lanka has quickly grasped the opportunity and conveyed its willingness to join the RCEP.
What amazed me is that for more than half a century, Sri Lanka never gave up. In the midst of internal politics and Indian Ocean geopolitics, it never lost its hopes. Finally, the entrance was confined to the “Southeast Asian” nations only, effectively curtailing any hope, but Sri Lanka’s hopes never dried up. And, 57 years later now a door is opened. I don’t think there is any other nation in the world that has been waiting so long to realise a dream as such.
Someone could wonder then “what’s the big deal of joining the ASEAN or the RCEP now?” I expect to address this question, perhaps, in the coming week.
(The writer is Emeritus Professor of Economics at the University of Colombo and can be reached at sirimal@econ.cmb.ac.lk and follow on Twitter @SirimalAshoka).
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