Has the time of ASEAN's utility as a trading bloc come and gone? Indonesia asks, what's the point?
 The 10-nation ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) trading bloc once had high hopes of becoming something like the European Community when charter members Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand first signed on in 1967.
Today, such dreams are long forgotten with a former Indonesian foreign minister now asking what is the point of it all, other than attending regional summits to issue feel-good communiques. That view is also shared and reinforced by public opinion polls.
Ex-minister Marty Nartelegawa's book "Does ASEAN Matter? A View From Within" accuses the bloc using its shared non-interference policy as a way to side-step any and all problems the bloc faces jointly and severally.
“In the past ASEAN’s way of dealing with disputes was sometimes by sweeping things under the carpet, not confronting things head on,” Dr Nartelegawa said. “That was the traditional ASEAN way. But on many key contemporary issues, developments are passing us by. We have to find a way of staying relevant.”
The association had faced several political “litmus tests” such as the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, or territorial disputes over the South China Sea, and "had not shown the required level of regional leadership", he said.
“ASEAN is perfectly divided on the issue of the Rohingya, we are not even presenting a united front to the rest of the world,” Dr Nartelegawa said. “What concerns me now is that when these issues are being discussed at the United Nations about human rights, ASEAN is not even being invoked. To me that speaks volumes about where ASEAN is at the moment, in terms of relevance. The silence is deafening.”
The UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar stressed that Southeast Asian nations should be paying more attention to the alleged war crimes in the country, which have been officially declared a genocide. The International Criminal Court has also launched a preliminary investigation into deportations of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, and associated allegations of torture, murder and rape. Again, where is ASEAN?
The creation of ASEAN was motivated by a common fear of communism in the '60s, after the French defeat in Vietnam War.
But all was not been sweetness and light between non-communist ASEAN countries. In the early '60s Indonesia and Malaysia were at war, when the Federation of Malaysia took over British Borneo, known as Sarawak. In this war, British backed Malaysia and against Indonesdia, the former Dutch East Indies. In the end, Indonesian President Suharto accepted legitimacy of West Malaysia.
The region's dynamic economic growth during the 1970s strengthened the organisation, enabling ASEAN to adopt a unified response to Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia in 1979.
ASEAN's first summit meeting, held in Bali in 1976, resulted in the signing of a Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, and a Declaration of Concord. The end of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s allowed ASEAN countries to exercise greater political independence in the region, and in the 1990s ASEAN emerged as a leading voice on regional trade and security issues.
But critics claim that the ASEAN Way's emphasis on consultation, consensus, and non-interference, forces the organisation to adopt only those policies which satisfy the lowest common denominator. Decision making by consensus requires members to see eye-to-eye before ASEAN can move forward on an issue.
Members may not have a common conception of the meaning of the ASEAN Way. Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos emphasise non-interference while older member countries focus on co-operation and co-ordination. These differences, critics say, hinder efforts to find common solutions to particular issues, and make it difficult to determine when collective action is appropriate in any given situation.
So member states work on what they can agree on, such as Narrowing the Development Gap (NDG) to reduce disparities among, and within member states.
They continued co-ordinating closely with other sub-regional co-operation frameworks such at BIMP-EAGA (Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area), IMT-GT (Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle) and GMS (Greater Mekong Subregion), viewing them as "equal partners in the development of regional production and distribution networks" in the AEC, and as a platform to "mainstream social development issues in developing and implementing projects".
Work Plans have also been developed to assist Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam as well as ASEAN's other sub-regions to ensure that the wheels of their economies move at an accelerated pace. The first IAI Work Plan was implemented from 2002 to 2008, prior to the development of the Roadmap for an ASEAN Community (2009-2015).
Dr Nartelegawa notes that at the Hanoi ASEAN meeting Indonesian Communications Minister Rudiantara urged members to dismantle barriers to cross-border payments and trade.
“I believe we Southeast Asian countries have to avoid competition and start collaborating before another region takes over the market,” said Mr Rudiantara. “Once Alipay and WeChat reach our market, they will dominate it. Hence I believe Southeast Asian countries need to speed up implementing cross border e-payment systems.”
But back home, notes Dr Nartelegawa, Indonesia then announces protectionist measures in support of its ailing currency, imposing higher taxes on more than 1,100 imported goods and urging exporters of commodities such as palm oil to retain their profits domestically, rather than investing abroad.
Said Dr Nartelegawa: “What confuses me is that sometimes the signals can be very contradictory. When we read the statements made in Hanoi we seem to be the perfect country for free trade, e-commerce, digitalisation, opening up, but then a different set of institutions will express totally contradictory sentiments.”
With some exasperation he concludes: "We are going through a trade war between China and the US, the prospect of a currency war, very difficult monetary situations. ASEAN is expressing concern, as they do, but beyond a running commentary, I’m not seeing what they are doing in terms of policy, either among themselves or with external countries, to address this.
Surveys suggest the Indonesian public, and particularly young people, are still left bewildered as the weigh the pluses and minuses of the trading bloc that increasing numbers say has outlived its usefulness, he says.
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