IMAGINING THE ASEAN COMMUNITY:
Balanced Development for All
(abridged version)
Wigberto E. Tanada
Lead Convenor
Fair Trade Alliance
Introduction
The forthcoming ASEAN Leaders’ Summit and the dream of the
Southeast Asian officials to build ASEAN into a community of caring
and sharing societies is a grand and noble vision. The ASEAN secretariat
further bolstered the economic hype of a strong and a rising ASEAN
community: around 600 million people producing an annual regional
GDP amounting to $1 trillion; a fast-growing region surrounded by
dragon economies – Japan, Korea, China and India, Australia
and New Zealand; Japan’s proposal to transform ASEAN as the
core of East Asia Free Trade Area (EAFTA) composed of the ten ASEAN
countries and these dragon economies; East Asia Free Trade Area
will have a collective GDP that will easily dwarf that of North
America and the European Union.
Founded in l967 and is turning 40 next year, the terms of engagement,
and an ASEAN Charter for approval by the ASEAN Leaders next year,
is being rushed by a group of eminent persons and a team of foreign
policy experts, only now.
The ASEAN project, as neo-liberalist economists claim, is a success
story on economic liberalization, globalization and regional integration.
Liberalization not the same as integration
The main point is that economic liberalization per se does
not necessarily lead to regional integration. The AFTA-CEPT
(ASEAN Free Trade Area- Common Effective Preferential Tariff) and
other ASEAN-led liberalization programs have played a marginal role
in the liberalization of the individual ASEAN economies. Most countries
in the ASEAN have unilaterally liberalized their economic regimes
or adopted liberalization on their own. In the case of Indonesia
and the Philippines, liberalization was part of the IMF-World Bank
conditionality package. Vietnam’s was part of their commitments
to the bilateral trade agreement with the US and as price of membership
in the WTO. Singapore’s liberalization has always been considered
an integral component of their open trading economy.
The reality that most ASEAN countries are competing with one another
is another reason for the poor growth of intra-ASEAN trade. A number
are producing similar agricultural products, exporting similar industrial
products, and sending migrant workers overseas to ease the unemployment
situation at home.
Uneven development
The third and probably more important reason is the uneven development
between and among the ASEAN countries. You have rich countries like
trade-rich Singapore, oil-rich Brunei and natural-resource-rich
Malaysia. On the other hand, you have the CLM countries –
Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar – whose per capita GDP is less
than half a thousand dollars. In between, you have a mixed bag –
the heavily-indebted Indonesia and Philippines, the coup-prone Thailand
and the fast-growing Vietnam.
There is also so much unevenness within the individual ASEAN countries,
with some benefiting from economic integration and globalization
(mainly the economic partners of transnational corporations and
some skilled professionals like IT programmers) while a large majority
are either not benefiting or marginalized (such as the small farmers,
communal fisherfolk, small and micro enterprises, etc.) Even the
rich ASEAN countries have a growing segment of old redundant workers
who can not find meaningful and secure jobs in a liberalized and
globalized economy.
Huge deficits in governance (specifically respect for democracy,
observance of human rights and compliance with global core labor
standards) is a reflection of unevenness in economic development.
Yet, difficult and embarrassing issues are dealt with the so-called
‘ASEAN way’ (meaning to just keep silent or to look
the other way around). There are also cross-country concerns which
are not addressed decisively in the ASEAN, (for example, the annual
problem of haze, the exhaustion of common marine resources, the
illegal trafficking of people, etc).
Towards a people-oriented integration
The regional integration formula developed by the ASEAN secretariat
and the ASEAN leaders is limited and weak, as it is focused mainly
on a narrow economic liberalization formula. Most of the integration
being done by the transnational corporations treat the region as
one production base and a single distribution market (for example,
Japanese car and electronics manufacturers; home-grown transnationals
-- CP of Thailand, San Miguel of the Philippines). The narrow and
limited integration is one explanation why majority of the peoples
in the ASEAN can not relate their lives to the ASEAN integration
project. The processes of information sharing and consultation on
regional integration with all the stakeholders are absent despite
the grand declarations that ASEAN is building a community of caring
and sharing societies.
Fortunately, there are positive developments. The fight for a voice
in the ASEAN process is getting stronger through civil societies,
trade unions and small producers in the region (such as the formation
of regional networks of farmers, home-based workers, trade unions
and civil societies).
This is what it should be, for real integration can only happen
if there is integration at the grassroots level; if people in the
ten ASEAN countries begin to understand that they are ASEAN citizens
and that they have a right to be heard.
Real development means: growth is not jobless for more and better
jobs are created for all; that integration is not voiceless, for
all the stakeholders are informed and consulted; that development
across the region is not ruthless and rootless for peace, equity
and harmony among the people are preserved, and that the ASEAN project
is not future-less because the environment is preserved and sustained.
Such a vision should be the basis for building an ASEAN community
of caring and sharing societies.
Of course, the success of such integration vision will depend on
how strong we are in uniting with one another and building an ASEAN-wide
movement around this vision. This is what this forum is all about.
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