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  • ASEANManaging External Political and Security Relations
  • Termsak Chalermpalanupap (bio)

The 2013 ASEAN Security Outlook1 states that ASEAN is facing “increasingly complex geopolitical challenges…” in Southeast Asia. This review examines the interplay of these challenges and how ASEAN and its Member States have dealt with them in order to maintain ASEAN centrality.

ASEAN Chairmanship of Brunei Darussalam

The ASEAN Chairmanship rotates among Member States in English alphabetical order. After Vietnam in 2010, normally it would have been the turn of Brunei Darussalam to chair ASEAN in 2011. Indonesia had asked and Brunei Darussalam as well as the rest in ASEAN agreed to let Indonesia take the turn of Brunei Darussalam in 2011. Indonesia’s main reason was that if it were to wait for its normal turn, which would come in 2013 after Cambodia in 2012,2 it would be saddled with double responsibilities of chairing ASEAN and APEC in the same year in 2013.

Myanmar had also swapped its turn in chairing ASEAN in 2016 with Laos in 2014. Myanmar wanted to secure the opportunity for the current elected government to showcase itself in the international community before its term ends in 2015. Laos had no problem waiting until 2016, and the rest in ASEAN was [End Page 53] supportive, especially in the light of the positive political changes in Myanmar under the leadership of President Thein Sein.3

Although Brunei Darussalam is the smallest Member State (with only about 400,000 of population),4 the sultanate has well-trained English-speaking bureaucrats to run the ASEAN Chairmanship efficiently. From the start, Brunei Darussalam kept a low profile as the ASEAN Chairman. Its emphasis was on getting ASEAN back to basics, working hard to implement what Member States had already agreed upon, putting the ASEAN house in order through quiet diplomacy, and avoiding rekindling old problems like those in the South China Sea.

Brunei Darussalam showed some concern about the steadily rising number of ASEAN meetings. ASEAN now has more than thirty ministerial bodies, which are served by over 100 committees of senior officials, task forces, working groups, etc. In 2012 the number of ASEAN meetings at all levels exceeded 1,000 for the first time in the forty-five years’ history of the organization.

One of the first changes introduced by Brunei Darussalam was to forego convening an informal meeting of ASEAN Foreign Ministers in early 2013. Since 2001, ASEAN Foreign Ministers would meet informally for a “retreat”5 somewhere in the ASEAN region in the first quarter of each year. Foreign Minister Prince Mohamed Bolkiah of Brunei Darussalam reportedly saw no urgent issue to justify having a “retreat”. Yet, one week after the nuclear test in North Korea, he managed to issue a statement on 19 February 2013 to express the “deep concern” of ASEAN Member States about the negative effect of the nuclear test on peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula. The timely response reflected the close cooperation of all other ASEAN Member States to support the ASEAN Chairmanship of Brunei Darussalam.

The 22nd ASEAN Summit in Bandar Seri Begawan, 24–25 April 2013, saw more changes. The ASEAN Leaders had relatively shorter meeting sessions, with less media fanfare, and no ministerial meetings. All the preparatory meetings of ASEAN senior officials, ministers, and community councils had already been convened in the second week of April. Delinking these preparatory meetings from the summit proper was Brunei Darussalam’s way to simplify the summit programme. It was also a practical solution to cope with the limited number of hotel suites in Bandar Seri Begawan. Also cut from the programme were summit sessions with representatives of the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly, ASEAN youths, or ASEAN civil society.6 [End Page 54]

The summit programme on 25 April included two “retreat” sessions, the first lasting only 90 minutes and the second 75 minutes; after lunch, Leaders of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines met for their 9th BIMP-EAGA (East ASEAN Growth Area); and Leaders of Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand met for their 7th IMT-GT (Growth Triangle). The fighting in Sabah between gunmen who supported the self-proclaimed “Sultan of Sulu” and Malaysian security forces in...

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