ICONAS Speech Summary – Dr. Ponciano S. Intal

Posted on October 5, 2014 by

Dr. Ponciano S. Intal, Jr.

(Senior Economist, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East ASIA)

Dr. Intal started his presentation on accelerating development and deepening economic integration by highlighting the fact that apart from China, ASEAN is the most successful region to reduce poverty and with the highest economic growth. ASEAN is also a growing investment hotpot in the world. Compare to India and China, ASEAN is far more dependent to foreign direct investment thus making it crucial to attract this capital for economic growth. ASEAN also offers larger middle class, which also means larger room to grow. But of course there are still challenges within it. ASEAN still have high percentage of people who live under the living standard, millions of poor people still struggling. These are the challenges faced by ASEAN Economic Community.

Dr. Intal pointed out that to accelerate growth and development is actually very difficult, in addition to specific requirements and needing difficult policy reforms.

ASEAN Economic community means deeper integration where all aspect is connected and data go through quickly. Fast services is required in order to cut total time needed to process document thus trading activities can take place in shorter time. Although it is difficult to do and takes times, it is actually very useful because fewer documents will be involved in this borderless community, shorter period of time will be spent to bring the commodities to the market and all government will be connected into one system which means standardization.

Dr. Ponciano emphasizes that ASEAN Community in its blue print offers various easiness for business actor especially on the openness of ASEAN market, thus allowing a faster export and import activities due to simplicity of permit procedures. This also could help business actor saving more of their capital and expanding their market. However, some ASEAN countries still face the difficulties in realizing the opportunities of economic openness. At the moment, only Malaysia and Singapore who have been receiving the best of open market and integration of economic system in ASEAN. This is the challenge: how to bring the benefits in economy to all ASEAN member states through collaboration and cooperation.

ICONAS Keynote Speech – Danny Lee

Posted on October 5, 2014 by

Danny Lee

(Director of Community Development, ASEAN Secretariat)

Mr. Danny Lee focuses his keynote speech on raising the issue of how transforming ASEAN into people centered organization still requires lots of efforts from many stakeholders. Two years ago, ASEAN Secretariat asked the question of “Where is ASEAN?” On a survey about ASEAN, 76% of the respondent does not know what ASEAN is doing. Thus, Mr. Danny Lee is thrilled to have the opportunities to be part of conference like ICONAS as it provides a platform to disseminate to people of what ASEAN does. He also emphasized on what roles ASEAN Studies Center can take in promoting and helping the process of establishing ASEAN Community 2015. One of the very important roles of ASC is on ensuring that ASEAN is a people-centered organization. ASEAN Community in 2015 is ongoing process as it is regional processes. So it is not a done yet. It is a starting process. As to support this processes, ASEAN Studies Center also plays an important role that can focuses on social sciences activities, collaboration and also to discuss new possibilities for ASEAN in green energy for example. Therefore, Mr. Danny Lee is optimist and confidence with the future of ASEAN because.

ICONAS Speech Summary – Ass. Prof. Farish A. Noor

Posted on October 5, 2014 by

Associate Professor Farish A. Noor

(Associate Professor at Rajaratnam School of International Studies)

Prof. Farish A. Noor started the discussion by delivering question “Where is ASEAN?” to the audience of the seminar. The general answer would be “there” which is epistemology wrong answer. The question “Where is ASEAN” refers to the meaning of ASEAN in the mind of so-called ASEAN people. Prof. Farish is a southeast asianist, he had have been into many part of Southeast Asia country and met many people, which some of them are part of 600 million of ASEAN people. He is 100% sure that none of these people whom he met and supposedly part of ASEAN know about ASEAN or even think that ASEAN is relevant to their life. This is the first challenge of ASEAN: How to make ASEAN meaningful for the people living in its region? How to make an identity part of ASEAN meaningful? Nowadays, the problem that is facing these people, us also, are the challenge to face economic political integration in one hand and globalization in another hand, impacting on our economies. This will impact each of our future of what we are going to be. Prof. Farish emphasizes on how the next generation of ASEAN will have to face the fact that success means a Singaporean born in Singapore, educated in Malaysia, marrying an Indonesia, having a career in Korea and Vietnam, and then maybe retiring and dying in Cambodia. This future itself, as Prof. Farish described, is not a floating idea like metaphysics. It is actually happening at least in his family in which relatives are coming from different ASEAN member countries which makes ASEAN is not an abstract idea. It is a reality for us. Historically, everything about Southeast Asia, by virtue of our geography and demography, by virtue that we are caught between the East and West, Southeast Asia has always been a zone of overlapped mixing hybridity. So, once again Prof. Farish raises the question “Conceptually, historically where is ASEAN?” ASEAN enters the language in vocabulary of Southeast Asia since 1966 or 1967 onwards. From the beginning, ASEAN was set for the stability and neutrality of the region towards cold war. During this time, ASEAN was merely talked as a vocabulary of political and elites group that is why ASEAN does not growing down to the ground level. Embarking from this point, Prof. Farish argue that the trust deficit occurs on the level of state-to-state relations. States in the post colonialism era necessarily acted to protect their territorial and economic sovereignty. People, on the other hands, do not have a trust deficit. In terms of people to people contact, what we need to do now, particularly academics who works with policy makers and architect of future ASEAN is to bring an aspect of genuine intra-Southeast Asia exchange that is happening all the time to the discussion of ASEAN. Take for the example on how many cross-border or cross-nation marriages between ASEAN member countries actually take place which he believes there are no statistics available to represent the general idea. Prof. Farish continues that the unavailability of the statistic is merely because on the perspective of nation-states, such aspect simply does not necessary. The technocrat does not see values on this, but sociologist does. That is why, meetings like this are important. It allows conversation between economist, sociologist, and technocrats to exchange their views on ASEAN Community.

Professor Farish then moves the discussion on how to lay down the normative foundation of common region homeliness in the context of Southeast Asia, ASEAN, that people would feel the common sentiment of belonging to ASEAN, part of ASEAN, citizen of ASEAN. This is where the crucial roles from academics, historians, and sociologist, especially anthropologist come in. If we expect the states to these roles, there are two fundamentals limitation of a state: by definition, a state should think of our (citizen) interest (i.e. national borders, economic borders, societal borders), a state could only lay down the architecture of communication and contacts, the process of integration by opening up the borders where comfort zone has been established, trust has been taking place and encourage people to interact at all level. However, no matter how powerful state is, it can’t force each of us to love ASEAN. States, in his explanation, can only provide the architecture; what need to be injected into the whole ASEAN debate is the vocabulary and epistemology, and the ground level knowledge of an actual organic dynamic that takes place in terms of people to people contact. This is exactly why Southeast Asian Studies matters. It is also important to set up ASEAN Studies Center to live up and bridge up this people to people contact. There is a need to formulate an operationable steps that allows people at the most ground level notice ASEAN and feels as ASEAN citizen, whom unfortunately often ignored by technocrats who is design the architecture. Southeast Asia is not something new and ASEAN is just another lieu of identity formed to represent the region. We should try to reconnect to the history of Southeast Asian that already exist out-there to create the homeliness of ASEAN on each level which come from complexity not homogenous. In the end of his speech, Prof. Farish reminds us that it is important to create an equal economic community, at the same time avoiding middle-income trap. If such kind inequality to be appears, then hyper nationalism sentiment would be contradictive to ASEAN spirit to create a regional sharing and caring community.

ICONAS Speech Summary – Mr. Suthipand Chirathivat

Posted on October 5, 2014 by

Championing ASEAN Economic Community

– Mr. Suthipand Chirathivat

Mr. Suthipand focuses his discussion on the framework of championing ASEAN Economic Community by discussing it on four remarks: growing ASEAN economies and market integration, driving AEC through growing ASEAN market integration, managing AEC through sectoral and regional change by learning from Thailand’s experiences and the opportunities lies behind AEC for ASEAN people.

On first note, Mr. Suthipand highlights the growing number of ASEAN market and its integration despite global slowdown. He quoted that there are an average of 4% of GDP growth in all ASEAN 10 member countries where Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam turn to be the new growth center. Although so, ASEAN markets should remain its concern on the possibilities of scale back US QE, Chinese currency movements, capital flows and exchange rate fluctuations and exports slowdown. However ASEAN economies stand as 3^rd biggest population in the world, with the GDP size rank 9^th in the world and trade value rank 5^th in the world. This shows the growth of South markets where ASEAN is more regionally integrated and globally connected than ever before although intra-states transaction remains low.

On the second note, Mr. Suthipand delivers issues on how to drive the growth of AEC through growing ASEAN market integration. AEC means single market, production base and increasing connectivity, which will allow each ASEAN country to involved in the network of global production thus allowing also ASEAN country to grow in the context of rising ASEAN, Asia and the world. However, progress is still below expectations and uneven.

AEC development is supported by four strategic pillars, which are single market and production base, competitive economic region, equitable economic development and integration into the global economy. These all four pillars pay attention on the development of human resources as well as research and development. Through this four pillars, the expected outcomes are such as readiness acceleration through active involvement from private sector, easier and cheaper access to product for consumers because the competitive region with wide range of options and extensive consumer protection. Another expected outcomes are the free flow of skilled labor within the region, which will create bigger job creation and opportunities; and providing platform for agreements to integrate ASEAN member countries deeper into global economy.

In the midst all of these, Thailand is the second largest economy of ASEAN member country, with prospective advantages. Since the earliest effort to welcome AEC, Thailand has been experiencing significant growth on GDP percentage since 2007 to 2011. Meanwhile, total trading number has also increased by 6.0 percent since 2008. Thailand is also well-known as the regional hub for automobiles, electrical and electronic production networks.

Embarking from the experiences of Thailand, Mr. Suthipand continue the discussion to embracing AEC as an opportunity for ASEAN by addressing seriously challenges like putting ASEAN people at the centre of the regionalism, mapping out an education/a campus that could embrace the region’s diversity and working together to avoid the middle income trap. These efforts should be done by empowering ASEAN people as ASEAN is a people centered organization.

ICONAS Speech Summary, Amb. I Gusti Agung Wesaka Puja

Posted on October 5, 2014 by

Championing ASEAN Political – Security Society: Opportunities and Challenge

– Amb. I Gusti Agung Wesaka Puja

Mr. I Gusti Agung Wesaka Puja started his presentation on the question of how many people in the room know about ASEAN Community. The answer to this question was that not many people in the seminar room actually know about ASEAN Community. His Excellency identifies this unawareness as one of the challenge. He is not surprised toward the fact because initially, ASEAN was established 47 years ago for the security and stability of the region. It is now growing towards ASEAN Community, which is not an event but a process of having a caring sharing community. As an ongoing process, ASEAN Community 2015 is looking forward to a community, which is politically cohesive, economically integrated and socially responsible.

Focusing on ASEAN Political and Security Community, he conveys that this pillar is aimed to ensure the people of ASEAN live in peace at a large in a just, democratic and harmonious environment. To do so, 84% of ASEAN Political-Security Community Blue Print has been implemented per August 2014, 82.1% for scorecard, and 96.7 of Number Action Lines. The commitment ASEAN would like to achieve has always been peace, stability and economic growth for ASEAN member countries. The same commitment is also uphold through the realization of ASEAN Community, a sharing and caring society.

On the second part of his presentation, Mr. Agung Wesaka Puja focuses on opportunities and challenge faced by ASEAN. He identify that ASEAN has the opportunities to grow and develop because of factors such region relative stability and peace, established cooperation with major powers, equipped with legal instruments to ensure peace, security and stability through arrangement like ZOPFAN, TAC, SEANWFZ and ACCT; existing forum and mechanism to address the security issues and to promote peace and stability like ADF, ADMM and AMMTC. Also, another opportunities in ASEAN is that it is a huge market of 600 millions of people that still have rooms for substantial economic growth. However, Mr. Agung Wesaka Puja also admitted that despite those opportunities, ASEAN should be careful and aware of challenges on traditional and non-traditional security issues, territorial disputes, trust deficit, development gap among state members, middle income trap risk, corruption and poor governance and slowdown in the US, the EU and the Chinese GDP growth.

To address this challenges, Mr. Agung Wesaka Puja addressed in his conclusion in Indonesian perspective that there is a need of a call to action where consolidating ASEAN Community should start at home first by strengthening the ASEAN Secretariat and three pillars of ASEAN Community 2015, implementation of Bali Concord III and its action plan as well as pursuing the identified ASEAN Development Goals of 2030 which is to double up the total number of GDP of ASEAN state members and cut half the total poverty number of state members. Hopefully, by next year when the ASEAN chairmanship is on Malaysia, these goals can be followed up.

Mr. Agung Wesaka Puja then moves up his discussion into Indonesian Perspective on the Indo-Pacific. The discourse of ASEAN nowadays has also widened into other countries in the Pacific. For instance the conflict in South China Sea, which shows that there is trust deficit, maritime, and land borders conflict as well as the changing transformation of a country that affect the region. It adds up the challenging part of establishing “we feeling” among the state members of ASEAN.

In his closing remarks, Mr. Agung Wesaka Puja conveyed that it is important for the academician, scholars and students to first understand about ASEAN Community as the frontliner of ASEAN Community 2015. He also emphasized that ASEAN Community 2015 is not an event but rather a process of integration that is started on 2015.

Jelang MEA 2015, Indonesia Harus Memimpin ASEAN

Posted on October 2, 2014 by

Dilansir dari Sumber Kedaulatan Rakyat pada Kamis, 2 Oktober 2014 (hal: 9)- Indonesia sebagai negara terbesar ASEAN harus menjadi leader dalam implementasi masyarakat ekonomi ASEAN (MEA) yang akan diberlakukan 2015. Sebagai pintu gerbang terwujudnya integrasi regional yang lebih terpadu, MEA harus siap menghadapi banyak peluang dan tantangan.

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Making ASEAN Works in Rohingya: A Southeast Asian Perspective

Posted on August 30, 2014 by aseansc

Ahmad Rizky Mardhatillah Umar

Research Assistant at ASEAN Studies Center, Universitas Gadjah Mada

Rohingya has become the most ironic phennomenon in Southeast Asia. Since 1990s, they have been exiled, displaced from their homeland in northern Myanmar. According to UNHCR, almost 140,000 people still displaced in Rakhine State, while over 800,000 persons are estimated to be without citizenship in the northern part of the State. This conditions “were gravely concerned” by UNHCR and seem to be one of the biggest humanitarian challenge in Southeast Asia today.

However, while international community has expressed its concerns regarding the Rohingya problem, we also witness lack of responses from Government’s officials in Southeast Asia. Until present, there is no significant response from ASEAN as the biggest regional institution in Southeast Asia, who aims to construct a ‘political security community by 2015.

What went wrong with Rohingya and, in particular, ASEAN? I would like to analyze this problem from three level of analysis: the ‘communal identity’, state regime, and regional institution.

First, the Rohingya problem is related, most importantly, with the question of identity. If we want to identify Rohingya, there will be a question: “who are Rohing people? Are they Burmese, or belong to other nationals? Myanmar’s citizen act has ironically denied Rohing as one of their citizen, thus excluding the Rohing people out from Myanmar. However, they are also unable to be identified as Bangladeshi, for example, because they have inhabited the Burmese land since hundreds years ago, even before the British colonial age.

Thus, the main problems facing Rohing people now is the identity problem –the exclusion of Rohing from the existing Westphalian political order. This should be addressed more critically by International Relations scholars.

Second, the Rohingya problem is also closely related to the political authoritarianism in Myanmar who uses its political apparatuses to repress the Rohings and exile them out from the state. Even though the authoritarian government has been much more softened within these years, the Rohingya problem is still untouchable. According to Ahmad Suaedy, one of Indonesian activist who declared his support to minority groups in ASEAN People’s Forum 2014, any attempts to discuss the Rohingya problem was cut by the local Monk. Even the government stopped any attempts to discuss this issue at ASEAN meeting. Therefore, any attempts to find a political solution to Rohingya problem have been constrained by the authoritarian regime in Myanmar.

Third, the Rohingya problem is also aggravated by the lack of response from ASEAN Member States as well as the ASEAN Institution. This is ironic because since 2003, 10 ASEAN Member States have agreed to establish a political community in the region by 2015 and since 2009 they have signed the ASEAN Charter. According to the Charter, ASEAN shall become a ‘people-oriented organisation’ and there will be a Human Rights Body in ASEAN (Later known as ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights/AICHR). Even though the body has been established since 2009, it also faces incapacity in dealing with various human rights issues, including its silence in a ‘sensitive’ minority issue like Rohingya.

I argue that bringing Rohingya problem to bigger Southeast Asian level, or by using ASEAN Perspective, can fill the gap left by ‘identity’ or ‘authoritarian regime’. By placing Rohingya as ‘ASEAN People’, for example, we can identify the Rohing people without referring them to any particular Burmese identity. Bringing ASEAN to solve this problem will also be, idealistically, avoid the use of force in dealing with Rohing people. However, with the lack of capacity, ASEAN is still unable to do something to solve Rohingya problem.

Having said that, ASEAN’s incapability in dealing with Rohingya issue will be critically discussed. Why does ASEAN incapable to deal with Rohingya issue? To answer this question, I would like to look deeper into ASEAN’s institutional design. Since its inception in 1967, ASEAN seems to be perceived by many states as a room fit only for state’s purpose to cooperate. It did not, originally, provide space for non-state entity to participate in the decision-making process. Therefore, ASEAN, since its very beginning, tends to be state-centric or, in other words, ‘elitist’.

The construction of ASEAN as merely ‘a room for state’ was brought into discussion in 2003, when ASEAN Political Security Community was agreed in Bali. Each member states, at that time, agreed to create a regional community and, later, placed ASEAN as the main foreign policy focus. However, the state-centric nature in ASEAN was still preserved. The highest decision-making level in ASEAN is posited at the ASEAN Summit, which is attended only by state representatives. Therefore, there is no adequate room for non-state entity to influence the decision-making process.

The problem is similar in Human Rights issues –even worse. Even though ASEAN has included the establishment of ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights in 2009, The Commission was not able to engage with any Human Rights cases in the region. This limitation was occurred due to lack of authority that the Commission owns in dealing with Human Rights cases. Thus, they are only able to make cooperation with other state in Human Rights issues. Another problem that is faced by the Commission is the low degree of democratization in several ASEAN Member States, including Myanmar. Many member states do not believe with democracy as well as Human Rights and even see them as threat for national sovereignty. The nature of authoritarian regime in ASEAN Member States prevents ASEAN to discuss prominent issues in Human Rights, even weaken the Human Rights Body itself.

Against this backdrop, this paper argues that state-centric nature in ASEAN Institutional Design and Mechanism is the main constraint in Rohingya problem. From previous experiences, that any attempts to establish a progressive Human Rights decision in ASEAN were prevented by the state. It leads to several controversies over the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration, that was signed in 2012. This declaration was accused by Human Rights Activist as ‘legitimizing Human Rights violation by the state’. This declaration contains controversial points that were rejected by Human Rights activist, including “the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms must be balanced with the performance of corresponding duties as every person has responsibilities to all other individuals, the community and the society where one lives” (Article 6), the inclusion of term “in accordance to national law” (e.g. article 16, 17, 18). Civil society alliances have denounced the adoption of the Declaration and stating that the Declaration “falls far below international standards”.

With this controversy, it is evident that ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights has been incapable to deal with Human Rights violation in ASEAN Member States, including the Rohingya problem. Apart from that, ASEAN also does not have any instrument to regulate refugee. Consequently, the Rohingya refugee problems were left unmanaged by ASEAN, hence raising many derivative problems on other ASEAN Member States.

Thus, what is to be done? I argue that advocacy attempts to all level should be conducted continuously. However, there are two urgent agenda that could be exercised by all parties who wants to solve the Rohingya people. First, making ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) works in dealing with Rohingya problems. AICHR should be given further authorities to facilitate state in dealing with Human Rights issues as well as preventing the Human Rights violation. Since AICHR is filled by state representatives, they should be given adequate knowledge on basic Human Rights issue so that regional awareness on ASEAN can be built, at least among ASEAN officials.

Second, establishing ASEAN Refugee institution. ASEAN has never been prioritizing refugee issue since this issue was not a dominant issue in the region. However, with the emergence of Rohingya problem, ASEAN Refugee institution should be established. This institution can coordinate with UNHCR to manage Rohingya refugee in many Southeast and South Asia States. Therefore, the internally displaced persons (IDPs) problem can be managed well in the region. These important decisions should be advocated in the upcoming ASEAN Summit.

Workshop MEA untuk Pemerintah Daerah

Posted on June 8, 2014 by aseansc

“Kesiapan Pemerintah Daerah Dalam Menghadapi Masyarakat Ekonomi ASEAN 2015”

Waktu: 18-20 Juni 2014

Tempat: Jogja Plaza Hotel, Yogyakarta

Dihadiri oleh 30 perwakilan dari beberapa pemerintah daerah di Indonesia, perwakilan dari dua kementerian terkait yaitu KEMENKO Perekonomian dan Kementerian Perdagangan. Hasil dari workshop ini adalah komitmen pemerintah daerah dalam membantu mensukseskan MEA 2015”