The major achievements of
the 23rd ASEAN Summit held this week in Brunei can be linked to what
did and did not happen.
First, ASEAN chair Brunei
again delivered a no-drama summit meeting, much appreciated after Cambodia’s
2012 tenure as ASEAN chair with its repeated attempts to intervene on the South
China Sea issue. Notably, this year
Cambodia has not been active on the South China Sea issue, reflecting perhaps
Hun Sen’s focus on his domestic politics and Cambodia’s having satisfied
whatever obligation it owed to China last year.
Myanmar now takes over as ASEAN chair, which was once a development to
be dreaded and now is viewed as having encouraged the reform efforts in that
country. Myanmar’s term will probably be
focused on showing the world that its reform efforts are genuine, meaning that
it will follow ASEAN consensus on political-security issues and the ASEAN
Secretariat’s guidance on economic issues while showcasing the country.
Second, the ASEAN leaders
agreed to establish a “High-Level
Task Force on Strengthening the ASEAN Secretariat and Reviewing the ASEAN
Organs.” This is a much-needed review of
the functioning of the ASEAN institutions and hopefully will result in
augmenting both the authority of the ASEAN institutions and their effectiveness,
a constant theme of this blog.
Third,
President Obama was not in Brunei. My
previous link suggests what the US can do to repair the diplomatic damage.
Fourth, the
ASEAN leaders approved various ASEAN Economic Community-related decisions,
which are described in my earlier post here.
Fifth, a
joint haze-monitoring system was approved. The system will
involve the sharing of digitized land-use maps and concession maps of
fire-prone areas that cause haze, with the data will be shared among the
governments of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and Thailand. This represents
an ASEAN-consistent approach to the haze situation, rather
than the bilateral approach that had been circulating earlier, and is a
positive immediate step, given that Indonesia is not likely to ratify the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary
Haze Pollution so soon, given its upcoming elections.
Finally, the
US (represented by Secretary of State John Kerry) said that it supported a code
of conduct for the South China Sea. This
was interpreted by some media outlets as support for a legal-oriented solution
the disputes and hence support for the Philippines’ UNCLOS arbitration case
(I think this might be stretching the analysis too far). India
announced that it would station a resident ambassador to ASEAN, joining
ASEAN’s other major trading partners. Singapore
said that it would help lead the joint ASEAN bid to host the football World Cup.
