A.S.E.A.N. fight avoided; everyone friends

Press, 29 August 1977, Page 13

A.S.E.A.N. fight avoided; everyone friends

By

STURAT McMILLAN

The second summit meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations turned out to be a less fierce affair than had been expected. Actually it was the post-summit talks with the Prime Ministers of Australia, Japan, and New Zealand that had been expected to be fierce, but something of the wellbeing of the summit meeting itself spilled over into the other meetings and everyone still appears to be friends with everyone else.

If there was a single accomplishment of the five member nations of A.S.E.A.N. (Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines it was that all doubts about the existence of A.S.E.A.N. were swept away. As the jargon goes, the political will for A.S.E.A.N. to succeed is there. In a dramatic move during the summit meeting, the Philippines dropped its long-standing claim to the Malaysian state of Sabah. What is being planned is a sort of common market among the member nations — a market which numbers 250,000,000, not far from the population of the European Common Market. A full common market may be a long time in coming; in the meantime regional cooperation and planning is taking place. The countries are extending trade preferences to one another, arranging long-term quantity contracts, arranging finance, and generally liberalising trade. A list of 71 items is to be traded duty free. There is also extensive co-operation in communications, in the marketing of commodities, and in co-ordinating the

development of the whole region. Inner conflicts exist in A.S.E.A.N. One arises from the different stages of development of the various countries. Singapore, highly developed, favours free trade which would give it a market for its industry. Indonesia lies at the other extreme, afraid lest an abundant supply of industrial goods from Singapore would inhibit the development of its own industry. Malaysia, whose capital of Kuala Lumpur was host to the summit meeting this year, seems a little unsure about how to develop an industrial base. Should it favour free trade or erect trade barriers to permit its own industries to flourish? In varying degrees the argument goes on in all the member nations. Another conflict occurs because of the differences of population among the members. Of the 250 million, Indonesia has 130 million. So far, Malaysia has been the driving force behind A.S.E.A.N. but can an organisation have one member with more than half the total population and still have equality among the members? Time will tell.

What may have been a tactical mistake occurred in 1976. A.S.E.A.N. established a secretariat and made its headquarters in Jakarta and its secretarygeneral an Indonesian, Lieutenant-General Hartono Dharsono. The matter was settled alphabeticaly, and at the end of the second year the secretariat will pass to Malaysia. But the locating of the secretariat first of all in Indonesia with an Indonesian head has created a situation in which the latent fear of four of the

nations has been brought into the open. In fact it does not affect the relationships as much as all that: sometimes Indonesia suggests that the secre-tary-general be given certain powers and the other four suggest that the matter should be resolved by inter-country committees.

The summit meeting stayed well away from turning A.S.E.A.N. into a defence pact. Officially the policy is for a zone of peace, freedom, and neutrality thoroughout the region. A few bilateral defence links exist. But there is no sign of A.S.E.A.N. confronting Vietnam.

The zone plan, promulgated first by Malaysia is intended to avoid confrontation between an Indo-China under Communist Governments and A.S.E.A.N. Earlier fears were held that Indo-China would be dominated by the unified Vietnam. As it turned out the Communist Governments of Vietnam and Cambodia are radically different. Laos does appear to have to take account of Vietnam, but Vietnam itself appears interested mainly in rebuilding. What appeared to happen at the post-summit conference was that most of the positions and demands had already been spelt out and no-one, among the politcal leaders at least, was interested in putting another political leader in a spot from which he could not retreat.

New Zealand and Australia, concessions have already been reported on in detail. What the A.S.E.A.N. countries wanted was greater access for their goods to markets. What they got were

a few concessions but pleas about New Zealand’s balance-of-payments problems and Australia’s unemployment problem and continuing studies. They also got promises of aid, the interesting aspect of that being that the promises were for five years, but the amounts were not increased. The bilateral amounts were added up, multiplied by five, and sounded much bigger. Probably New Zealand scored on the alphabetical system. When the Prime Minister met the five leaders alone he was the last. It was from Australia and Japan in any case that the five wanted most concessions. New Zealand might have got a tougher deal had it appeared earlier in the piece. Japan came with $1 billion in aid in one hand but some stringent conditions in the other. It wants to be satisfied about the feasibility of the five huge industrial projects being planned: the urea plants in Indonesia and Malaysia, the superphosphate plant in the Philippines, the diesel engine plant in Singapore, and the soda ash plant in Thailand. Indeed, some of the arousing of the political w’ill towards the projec t s and . towards A.S.E.A.N. seems to have been more diligent than some of the economic calculations.

But Japan has not opened its doors to products from A.S.E.A.N. countries and the need for the A.S.E.A.N. countries to employ their people will not go away. Aid is the easier sacrifice. As always, it remains more blessed to give than to receive the imports of other countries.