The ASEAN Regional Forum

1. The Beginnings

The Beginnings 1 1 THE BEGINNINGS On 28 January 1992, almost a quarter of a century after the founding of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the leaders of the then-six members of ASEAN — Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei Darussalam, President Soeharto of Indonesia, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of Malaysia, President Corazon Aquino of the Philippines, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong of Singapore, and Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun of Thailand — met in Singapore. It was only the fourth meeting of ASEAN’s leaders in the association’s almost twenty-five years of existence. Several important decisions were made at that summit.1 One of those decisions was to create the ASEAN Free Trade Area. AFTA was to be achieved primarily through the Common Effective Preferential Tariff scheme, which would entail dropping, in agreed tranches and according to a common timetable, tariffs on intra-ASEAN trade to 0–5 per cent by a definite date. To “supervise, coordinate and review” this process, they set up the ministerial-level AFTA Council. However, the leaders also recognized that integrating the regional economy, which was AFTA’s ultimate purpose, required more than the reduction and removal of tariffs.Thus, they committed their countries to the elimination of quantitative restrictions and other nontariff barriers to intra-ASEAN trade within specified time frames. They called on ASEAN to “encourage and facilitate free movement of capital and other financial resources”. They committed ASEAN to the development of “safe, efficient and innovative transportation and communications infrastructure networks”. They stressed the importance of strengthening postal and telecommunications services. 1 2 The ASEAN Regional Forum The Singapore Summit reiterated ASEAN’s perennial concern over energy security, emphasizing in its declaration “cooperation in energy security, conservation and the search for alternative fuels”. Recognizing the importance of ASEAN awareness among the people of Southeast Asia, the ASEAN leaders directed “the expansion of ASEAN Studies as part of Southeast Asian Studies in the school and university curricula”. With respect to ASEAN’s management, the leaders decided to meet formally every three years, with an “informal” summit in each of the years inbetween . Since then, the distinction between formal and informal summits has been removed, with ASEAN Summits now held annually and the new ASEAN Charter prescribing at least twice-yearly Summit meetings. The Secretary-General was to be designated as the ASEAN Secretary-General (as against the previous designation of Secretary-General of the ASEAN Secretariat), appointed on merit and accorded ministerial status.The Secretariat was to recruit its professional staff openly but “ensure representation of all ASEAN countries in the Secretariat”. Until then, the professional staff had been seconded to the Secretariat by their respective governments. Before the 1992 ASEAN Summit, ASEAN had been at the forefront of the political and diplomatic resistance to Vietnam’s incursion into and subsequent occupation of Cambodia, an occupation — and an ASEAN effort — that lasted from 1979 to 1989, when Vietnamese troops withdrew from Cambodian soil. ASEAN had also played a prominent role in the search for a diplomatic resolution to the Cambodian problem. The search included the Jakarta Informal Meetings of 1988 and 1989, sponsored by ASEAN and convened by Indonesia, and the Paris Conference that began in 1989. The weight of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, plus Japan, and consultations and compromises among them contributed significantly to the diplomatic endeavour. That endeavour ended with the conclusion of the Paris Peace Agreements in 1991. At their Singapore Summit, the ASEAN leaders pledged to help “in ensuring the full implementation” of the Paris Agreements and in the “reconstruction” of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. They reiterated ASEAN’s commitment to “forge a closer relationship based on friendship and cooperation with the Indochinese countries”. These were the highest-level expressions of ASEAN’s effort, begun after the reunification of Vietnam and resumed after the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia, to reach out to the Indochinese states across the Southeast Asian divide. From a strategic viewpoint, all these measures would help strengthen Southeast Asian and Asia-Pacific stability in an uncertain time. Regional economic integration, including transportation and communication networks, The Beginnings 3 would enable ASEAN to provide ballast and leadership in East Asia and the Asia-Pacific by achieving a certain level of economic weight and competitiveness. The emphasis on energy security was part of this effort. So were the cultivation of ASEAN awareness among the people of Southeast...