Monday 23 March 2015

Mr Lee speaking at the opening of the Fifth ASEAN Ministerial Meeting at Shangri-La Hotel in 1972, when he was Prime Minister. Photo: Ministry of Information and The Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore

Preserving Spores security via ASEAN

The regional grouping helped
buttress solidarity while
maintaining a balance of power

our decades ago, Indonesia,

together with Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Singapore,
established the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, at a
time when the region was in turbulence.
It was August 1967: the Cold War
was at its peak, dividing the region
into communist and non-communist
blocs, with a fault-line running right
through the heart of South-east Asia.
The United States war campaign in
Vietnam was also intensifying.
Compounding the situation were
the disputes between South-east Asian
countries. Singapore had been forced
out of Malaysia two years earlier.
Indonesia had recently wound up
konfrontasi with Malaysia and Singapore. Malaysia and the Philippines
were also locked in a dispute over Sabah, while Brunei had put down, with
the help of British forces, an internal
rebellion aided by Indonesia.
For Mr Lee Kuan Yew, these factors reinforced the fact that Singapore
was situated in a turbulent, volatile,
unsettled region.
The need for ASEAN
ASEANS formation was therefore
based on an overarching rationale to
counter communism and act as a unifying force during the Cold War. It was
hoped that member states would also
build their own resilience by managing their differences and preventing
proxy wars in the region.

In From Third World To First, Mr

Lee wrote: The unspoken objective of
ASEAN was to gain strength through
solidarity ahead of the power vacuum
that would come with an impending British and later a possible US withdrawal.
It was clear that the leaders Mr
Lee, former Indonesian President Suharto and former Malaysian Prime
Ministers Hussein Onn and, later, Mahathir Mohamad shared an innate
understanding of the situation and different sensitivities of the region during
ASEANs formative years.
Mr Lees views of the grouping were
shaped by Konfrontasi with Indonesia
and the Vietnam War. To him, ASEAN
was a vehicle that would not only buttress regional solidarity, but also maintain a delicate power balance between
Indonesia, the largest power in Southeast Asia, and its neighbours.
Mr Lee ensured that the voices of
smaller states were not lost. In a 1999
Asiaweek interview, he said: We dont
pick quarrels. As ASEANs smallest
member, we have to stand our ground,
or our rights will be rolled over.
When Vietnam invaded and occupied Cambodia in 1978, for example,
Mr Lee was the first to write to then
Thai Prime Minister Kriangsak Chamanan and Chair of ASEAN to urge
the organisation to stand united and
steadfast in supporting the Cambodian coalition and pressure Vietnam
to withdraw its troops. He later wrote:
We had spent much time and resources to thwart the Vietnamese in Cambodia because it was in our interest
that aggression be seen not to pay.
Mr Lee saw ASEAN as a means to
preserve the security of a small state
like Singapore, especially with its pre-

dominantly ethnic Chinese population,

in a sea of Malays. He helped cement
the fact that Singapore is a South-east
Asian country by recognising China in
1990 only after Indonesia had done so.
By using his friendship with Suharto
and being sensitive to Indonesias feelings on thorny issues, such as China, Mr
Lee was able to carve out a reasonable
space for Singapore in ASEAN. Mr Lee
wrote in From Third World To First:
Under Suharto, Indonesia did not act
like a hegemon. This made it possible
for the others to accept Indonesia as
first among equals.
Future of ASEAN

Pushpanathan
Sundram is former
deputy secretarygeneral of ASEAN
for ASEAN
Economic
Community,
managing director
at EAS Strategic
Advice, Asia and
senior research
fellow at the
Singapore Institute
of International
Affairs (SIIA).
Simon Tay is
chairman of SIIA
and
author of Asia
Alone: The
Dangerous
Post-Crisis Divide
from America.

Later, with the collapse of communism,

the reality of a multi-polar world and
Chinas growing heft in the region,
ASEAN continued to maintain a strategic balance of power in the region.
The grouping engaged the worlds
major powers through multilateral
mechanisms such as the ASEAN Regional Forum, the East Asia Summit and
the ASEAN Plus Three Meeting, which
includes China, Japan and South Korea.
At the same time, ASEAN needed
a new force for unity: Economics. This
economic imperative started in 1992, after Mr Lee had stepped down, with the
launch of the ASEAN Free Trade Area
and its goal of economic integration.
ASEAN enlarged from 1997 onwards to include new members. By the
2003 ASEAN Summit, member states
would call for closer economic integration and the creation of an ASEAN
Community by 2020, a goal which has
now been advanced to 2015.
As one of the founders of ASEAN, Mr
Lee had from the start engaged with new

members and encouraged their opening

and entry into the regional group and
international community. For example,
ASEAN and Singapore had worked
hard on the Cambodian question early
on, with Mr Lee personally travelling
the world to highlight the issue.
Yet, Mr Lee also rapidly adjusted to
the realities and possibilities of the postCold War world. In a 1999 Asiaweek
interview, he said: Theres no great
ideological divide between the ASEAN
countries. The communist system is
gone. We are just varying degrees of
democracy or of authoritarianism. Every country wants economic and social
progress. After the severe financial and
economic setbacks, nobodys got time
for ideological or expansionist issues.
Vietnam, in particular, came into focus for him. Mr Lee first visited it in the
early 90s and had been appointed an
adviser to its government. He then made
visits to the Singapore-Vietnam industrial parks that were opened as part of
inter-governmental cooperation.
Vietnams successful integration
into ASEANs fold is proof that economic integration is indeed the path
forward. Already, the organisation has
announced that it has achieved 80 per
cent of its goals in the ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint to be an
integrated market by 2015.
As Mr Lee put it in 2011s Hard
Truths to Keep Singapore Going: The
logic of joining markets is irrefutable
and it will happen.
When, and not if, economic integration occurs, it would certainly validate
Mr Lees confidence in ASEANs ability
to serve as a viable force for unity and
prosperity. Pushpanathan Sundram
and Simon Tay