ASEAN’s Ambivalence
Anshu De Silva Wijeyeratne examines democracy’s failure to win the hearts and minds of ASEAN members.
The tragic events of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar provoked mixed emotions from the international community. The natural concern for the Burmese people was interspersed with anger at the ruling military junta’s steadfast resistanceto international assistance. This refusalundoubtedly exacerbated the suffering of Myanmar’s people. From the international community’s perspective, this was another example of how the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) diplomatic practice failed to achieve its goal of promoting meaningful political change in Myanmar.
Holding to that interpretation of events, ASEAN can be cast as particularly culpable for the failure to reach out to Myanmar. Although ASEAN argued that allowing Myanmar to accede to ASEAN would be far more conducive to promoting internal political change than ‘heavy-handed’ Western diplomacy, ASEAN’s anachronistic realist calculations in fact convey an ambivalent attitude toward democracy. This has undermined ASEAN’s credibility in dealing with the challenge of democratising Myanmar.
Asian Values or Asian Subterfuge?
Asian leaders traditionally portray democracy as incompatible with Asian cultures. This has fostered an ‘Asian values’ discourse. However, upon closer examination, the ‘Asian values’ argument does not prove a substantial one.
First, it is argued that the West’s advocacy of democracy is simply imperialism through other means. However, Soraj Hongladarom, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Chulalongkorn University, notes that calls for greater democratisation usually come from within. Indeed in Myanmar, foreign intervention has followed, rather than instigated, a popular democratic movement within Myanmar itself.
Second, liberal democracy is supposedly alien to Eastern cultures. This cultural relativist stance assumes that cultures are distinct and rigid. In an age of globalisation, cross-border interaction has reached unprecedented levels. Culture is more dynamic and fluid than ever before. Therefore, even if democracy has not traditionally fitted within an Asian values framework, cultural change and growth invalidates this argument.
Third, liberal democracy would allegedly reduce Asian countries’ economic competitiveness. As public choice theory suggests, politicians struggle to balance the electoral imperative of accommodating different constituencies with the demands of effective policy. Hongladarom dismisses this managerial conceptualisation of a country as unrealistic, because a country is too pluralistic to be governed as a corporation;therefore economic reasoning alone cannot be a bar to democratisation.
Considering the limitations of the more constructivist Asian values thesis, it is to realism that we need to turn. Its focus on national self-interest best explains ASEAN’s unwillingness to ‘put its neck-on-the-line’ to promote Myanmar’s democratisatiion.
The madness behind the method
ASEAN’s prioritisation of national self-interest underpins a modus operandi (the ASEAN Way) that impedes the promotion of democratic norms. The ASEAN Way supposedly compromises between legal-rational Westphalian norms and socio-cultural norms of informality, consultation and consensus. In contrast with Western diplomacy’s allegedly adversarial character, Amitav Acharya, Head of Research at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies of Singapore, suggests that the ASEAN Way “discourages extreme behaviour, modif[ies] extravagant demands and inspire[s] compromise”. However, two of its core principles – consensus and sovereignty –undermines ASEAN’s response to Myanmar’s political troubles.
“ASEAN’s anachronistic realist calculations in fact convey an ambivalent attitude toward democracy.”
ASEAN’s reliance on consensus, in the absence of formal enforcement mechanisms, is problematic. Admittedly it reassures countries that their national interests will be protected, thus bringing them to the bargaining table. Nonetheless, like the much-castigated Security Council veto power, the price of this reassurance is that decisions reflect the lowest common denominator rather than comprehensive solutions to regional challenges. Indeed, Myanmar is just another issue in ASEAN’s chequered history that it has managed rather than resolved.
ASEAN’s realist emphasis on sovereignty and non-interference has a similar effect. Archarya describes non-interference as ASEAN’s cardinal principle. It discourages ASEAN members from criticising or intervening in another country’s internal affairs, effectively shielding Myanmar’s military junta from regional scrutiny. Thailand proposed an alternate doctrine of ‘flexible engagement’, allowing ASEAN to discuss with members domestic issues with regional implications. However, this idea was resoundingly rejected.
The problem is that non-interference is the legacy of ASEAN’s birth in the midst of the Cold War. Retaining this policy has frozen ASEAN in a past era of geopolitics. It is questionable whether non-interference is suited to the current international climate.
ASEAN’s reluctance to abandon non-interference starkly contrasts with developments, albeit incremental, in human rights practice. As the Responsibility to Protect doctrine presented at the 2005 World Summit indicates, sovereignty is increasingly recognised as a contingent, rather than absolute, norm. Whether sovereignty serves the greater wellbeing of a state’s populace is a relevant consideration. Whilst the European Union remains the standard-bearer in this regard, even other developing world regional bodies, like the African Union and the Organisation of American States, have at least formally sought to strike a better balance.
Unfortunately ASEAN’s chosen alternative, ‘constructive engagement’, has reaped little reward. ASEAN’s leaders argued that behind-the-scenes diplomacy and economic ties would induce reform. However, as the Alternative ASEAN Network on Myanmar points out, Myanmar’s record has actually worsened, with increased crackdowns and imprisonments of political and religious activists, seen in the regime’s response to the 2007 Saffron Revolution. The incentive for Myanmar’s leaders to foster political reform has diminished as they enjoy the prestige, legitimacy and political and economic benefits that ASEAN membership confers.
ASEAN has failed to heed the lesson of apartheid South Africa: regional pressure is vital in promoting change. As The Economist reminds us, constructive engagement only works with countries like China, which at least nominally value economic benefits to their citizens.
More recently, in designing its Charter, ASEAN ignored key progressive proposals from ASEAN’s Eminent Persons Group. These included calibrating non-intervention “where the common interest dictates closer cooperation” and imposing sanctions on, or even expelling, members that commit grave human rights violations. Thus ASEAN has remained rooted in place in promoting democratic norms.
Democracy unloved
Member states’ apathy towards democracy further reinforces ASEAN’s unwillingness to address Myanmar’s democratic-deficit. ASEAN is the only major regional grouping without a human rights charter. Furthermore, according to Freedom House, Indonesia is the only ASEAN member whose democratic rating improved in the past thirty years. This exposes a weak democratic culture and reluctance born of the fear of scrutiny.
Whilst ASEAN has been increasingly vocal about Myanmar, its disjointed response to the 2007 Saffron Revolution indicates that this newfound voice is motivated by political expediency, rather than a genuine desire for change. As the International Crisis Group highlights, this is suggested by the disparity between the Philippines’ forceful calls for change, the limited calls for change in Singapore and Malaysia, and the silence of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. The ASEAN Charter states that human rights are subject to “the rights and responsibilities of member states”. This denies human rights their universality and inalienability.
Guns and dollars
Myanmar’s geopolitical importance to ASEAN’s member states also undercuts ASEAN’s willingness to sacrifice diplomatic capital to promote democracy.
First, Myanmar presents a strategic bulwark against the rising forces of China and India. Myanmar has historically been China’s closest regional ally. China has provided valuable diplomatic support, trades heavily with Myanmar and invests significantly in transport and communication infrastructure to boost its economic and security interests. The two countries also enjoy security ties in intelligence, training and arms transfers. Consequently, India has found itself in a security dilemma and begun developing similar relations with Myanmar. Thus ASEAN is concerned that antagonising Myanmar over democracy does not maximise utility, considering the potential cost of ‘losing’ Myanmar to one of these emerging powers.
Second, Myanmar has economic significance. For example, Singapore was Myanmar’s largest trading partner and foreign investor during the 1990s. Malaysia, which like Singapore places paramount value on economic development for its ‘performance-legitimacy’, has also rapidly increased its investments in Myanmar. In the first half of 2002, for example, it accounted for US$44m out of US$49.2m invested in Myanmar.
An exercise in futility
Ironically, ASEAN’s narrow construction of its self-interest has undermined this very self-interest. ASEAN’s protracted response to Myanmar’s dilemma tarnishes its international standing. The rhetoric, of today’s political world is that of liberal human rights. U.S. and EU leaders have boycotted or threatened to boycott meetings with ASEAN due to ASEAN’s recalcitrance on the issue. Given the challenges of Avian Flu and the post-Boxing Day Tsunami recovery, ASEAN can little afford threats to the extra-regional trade that is its economic lifeblood. Furthermore, Myanmar’s neighbours suffer the spill-over effects of Myanmar’s struggles with drugs, human trafficking and HIV/AIDS.
Where to from here?
ASEAN can achieve meaningful progress in Myanmar through effective collaboration with other international stakeholders. Under an International Crisis Group proposed international division of labour, ASEAN would participate in a regional working group, loosely modelled on the North Korea Six-Power talks. As indicated by Myanmar’s refusal to accept U.S. aid following Cyclone Nargis, Myanmar is more likely to cooperate with ASEAN than the Western powers.
ASEAN needs to engage with Myanmar in critical dialogue. This should be include a package of both pressures and incentives to push for reform and reiterate that Myanmar’s behaviour contravenes ASEAN’s expectations. ASEAN might also utilise its improved relationship with India and China as diplomatic leverage with Myanmar. This would help alleviate the geopolitical constraints on effective action by ASEAN.
Fundamentally, ASEAN needs to reconceptualise its self-interest. ASEAN must move beyond a narrow perspective governed by sovereignty, distrust of democracy and geostrategic imperatives. This focus has tied ASEAN’s hands when dealing with Myanmar. In an increasingly globalised world, democracy is closely correlated with diplomatic legitimacy – at least in the eyes of the global powerbrokers with whom ASEAN seeks close relationships. What states do in their own backyards is now everyone’s business. It is imperative that ASEAN breaks away from the shackles of ambiguity and reach a strong regional consensus on democratic reform in Myanmar.
