This week Christian Whiton,
whose work I respect, wrote in WSJ.com on
the reasons why Timor Leste should join ASEAN. Now I would agree with the political,
economic and other reasons put forth in the article. Unfortunately, I don't see
how this will become reality any time soon, perhaps not in this decade.
This was discussed in one of
the
earliest posts of this blog. Have
things changed since 2011, when Indonesia was actively pushing for Timor Leste
in its role as ASEAN Chair?
On the ground, Timor Leste
has improved its governance and infrastructure, as Christian notes in his
article. However, sources in the ASEAN
Secretariat and in Dili have indicated to me that Timor Leste is still far
behind in understanding and incorporating the aquis of commitments associated with full ASEAN membership. Much of this is related to the relative lack
of skills and human resources in Timor Leste’s government; however, similar
issues did not hold back Cambodia from joining ASEAN, issues which were
resolved through the passage of time and the influx of resources.
Just as importantly, ASEAN
itself is not ready for Timor Leste to join its ranks., for reasons big and
small. In 2015, ASEAN is conducting a
stocktaking of the ASEAN Community, which will include a review of the
authority and functioning of the ASEAN institutions. Implementation both of the post-2015 ASEAN
Community agenda and the institutional reform will take time. ASEAN
needs to get this right with its existing members before it takes on a new
member.
On the smaller reasons, Dili
will need time to develop the physical infrastructure to host the two ASEAN
summits that will come with becoming ASEAN Chair at some point; one of these
ASEAN summits will also incorporate the East Asia Summit which the leaders of
the United States, China and other countries will attend. Furthermore, if Timor Leste joined now, the
rotational ASEAN Chair position would be filled by Timor Leste in 2020 (currently
scheduled to be Vietnam’s term as ASEAN Chair, as the rotation is supposed to
be Malaysia, Laos, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam beginning in
2015; Timor Leste would fit in after Thailand). This means that Timor Leste probably cannot
join ASEAN until Vietnam’s term as ASEAN Chair in 2020, or more likely, Timor
Leste will agree to a delayed term as ASEAN Chair upon joining. Although these considerations may appear to
be minor, they are given weight by the ASEAN leadership.
Weaving all of these
considerations leads to a worst-case scenario of Timor Leste joining ASEAN by
2023, when its former occupier Indonesia becomes ASEAN Chair once again. By that year, sufficient time will have
passed for Dili to have addressed the large and small concerns regarding its
membership application, which should allow Indonesia to make a full court press
for Timor Leste once again and succeed where it could not in 2011.
The problem is that 2023 is
8 long years away and much could happen in the interim. Furthermore, ASEAN membership can, in and of
itself, be used as a carrot and a stick to encourage Timor Leste to continue
with its economic and political reforms.
Better then, to give Timor Leste a fixed date of membership, say by 2020
(which was the original date for the ASEAN Community), but take efforts to
ensure that Timor Leste can be a fully functioning member by then. That means letting Timor Leste participate as
an observer to ASEAN meetings (something promised by then-ASEAN Chair Indonesia
in 2011 but not really implemented) and increasing support for its accession
efforts (both to ASEAN and the WTO; full accession to the WTO will greatly help
Timor Leste deal with its AEC commitments).
That also means making accession conditional on achieving set goals
during the process, so that ASEAN does not lock itself into taking on an unprepared
Timor Leste.
By doing this, ASEAN can
avoid the mistakes of the European Union. The EU has arguably taken on new
members who were unprepared and required years to catch up. The EU also started accession talks with
Turkey which became interminable due to domestic European politics and
ultimately alienated that country.
Timor Leste, by comparison,
carries no such political risks for the ASEAN leaders but comes with regional
risks which can be alleviated by the proper use of time and resources. The
bigger risk would be to put off Timor Leste indefinitely and create a
underperforming, or worse, failed state at the southeastern edge of southeast
Asia.
