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ASEAN has been around for so long media outlets rarely spell the full name – Association of Southeast Asian Nations. That sounds significant and grand. It’s not.

 

The parade of talk going nowhere     By Duncan Graham

 

A better title for the acronym would be Association of Supercilious Egoists and Nationalists. Even that snide put down wouldn’t do enough injustice to a ten-member group that likes to think it’s a local version of the European Economic Community.

ASEAN is not Asia’s Common Market, but this week Australians will be bamboozled into thinking otherwise.

Summit delegates[will meet in Melbourne this morning ]for a two-day bun fight that will generate indigestion, photos of ranks of mostly plump men and a mass of verbiage. The taxpayers of the region who fund this knees-up will be served commentary that means nothing because ASEAN does nothing.

The African Union has shown it can take “collective action against coups and other breaches of democratic rule, as well as taking collective action in the face of other political crises.” ASEAN can’t, according to US journalist Joshua Kurlantzick, a Senior Fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Some background: In 1967 during the Vietnam War Indonesia with US support set up ASEAN with Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore. The idea was to block the advance of Communism.

Ironically two latecomers are Red – Vietnam – subtly backing Russia – and Laos, with feudal Cambodia sticking close to China. The absolute monarchy of tiny Brunei (population less than half-a-million) signed up in 1984. Despotic Myanmar, now a military dictatorship, became a member in 1997.

Talk of Australia joining this Cold War relic long past its use-by date is academic because decisions must be unanimous.

We’re a Western nation aligned with Northern Hemisphere powers, superior and racist – an image already hardened by the Voice result. On the other side we’re democratic and follow the rule of law. That makes us out of place in ASEAN.

Only Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines follow forms of ‘flawed democracy’ as assessed by the Economist Intelligence Unit. That doesn’t mean they’re goodies, just not so bad as the rest.

The US found AUD$142 million this year to support ‘the robust implementation of the ASEAN Outlook’ whatever that’s supposed to mean.

The only frayed twine stringing the ten disparate nations together isn’t language (meetings are in English), culture, history, ideologies, total population (672 million) or economies. It’s geography.

Is the continent and Commonwealth of Australia in Southeast Asia? Most ASEAN citizens and Australians wouldn’t think so despite our politicians from Whitlam onwards claiming otherwise.

Eleven years ago then PM Julia Gillard released Australia in the Asian Century White Paper ’nurturing deeper and broader relationships … by taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the Asian century.’

It vanished from government websites following the election of Tony Abbott but has now reappeared.

The truth is we relate better to New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, countries that provide us with visitors and workers mainly using the same language and having similar faiths.

To soften up Melburnians to tolerate traffic snarls caused by summiteers’ sightseeings, locals have been told by the PM’s office that the show celebrates Australia becoming ‘ASEAN’s first Dialogue Partner in 1974.’ There’s more:

‘Australia and ASEAN have worked together to address the complex challenges facing our region. Our practical cooperation contributes to making the region more peaceful, open, stable and prosperous.’

Maybe the words will comfort the activists fighting for their lives, villages and a return to democracy in Myanmar, a member state of ASEAN and now a vile military dictatorship.

The PM’s office blurbs use the word ‘bloc’ as though all member states coalesce. That’s another misnomer – distrust among neighbours is widespread and ancient.

In 2021 Australia and ASEAN set up a ‘Comprehensive Strategic Partnership’. What this means in terms of dollars spent, paid and understood by citizens is another blur of obfuscation:

‘We’ve been working with our ASEAN partners on giving effect to our partnership, agreeing shared priorities, increasing resources and advancing new programs. Our Plan of Action guides the implementation of the goals and objectives of the partnership.’

There is some business underway but whether this has much to do with ASEAN is doubtful. Our trade in 2021 with ASEAN states was AUD178 billion, but almost a third was with or through Singapore.

Two-way investment with that tiny island nation (population six million) was AUD 225 billion. The figure for ASEAN is AUD 249 billion – and that includes Singapore. Whoops. Not a stat the host nation wants to spread.

Supporters of ASEAN rightly promote the importance of regional unity, but warn: ‘Diversity, divisions and disputes remain consequential features of the region that pose a significant threat to unity.’

In 2012, ASEAN delegates declared they supported an “ASEAN Human Rights Declaration”. Fifty-five civil rights organisations were furious, claiming the statement implied ‘their people are less deserving of human rights than the people of Europe, Africa or the Americas’.

Cambodia is this year’s ASEAN chair and PM Hun Sen seems indifferent to the Myanmar coup that so distresses Western democracies. ‘He has essentially invited Myanmar’s military leaders to just return to the ASEAN fold, provided they meet laughably easy markers,’ writes Kurlantzick.

The truth behind the hoopla is that Australia has no idea of how to relate to the region. It has a Free Trade Agreement with Indonesia, the burgeoning and largest state in ASEAN with a population 500 times bigger than Brunei. But this FTA is moving so slowly that Canberra regularly pushes businesses to do more.

Western investors are reluctant because of political instability and corruption throughout ASEAN. Today’s show will be another attempt to breathe some purpose into the old pact while hoping some other more credible association can arise.

That’s unlikely.

https://johnmenadue.com/the-parade-of-talk-going-nowhere/

 

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PM Anwar Ibrahim rattles Australia’s cage on sinophobia and Gaza    By Lim Teck Ghee

 

Making the news in the mainstream western media around the world, but not in Australia which is hosting the ASEAN-Australia Special Summit 2024, was the forthright response from Malaysia PM Anwar Ibrahim during his press conference to a question from Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) journalist Stephen Dziedzic.

The transcript of this conversation is reproduced here as it has not been followed up with any report from the ABCdespite its undoubted importance for Australian and Asian policy makers and public.

JOURNALIST: Prime Minister Anwar, last week in the Financial Times you criticised what was apparently termed as ‘sinophobia’ in the United States and perhaps the broader west in its dealings with the region. Can you expand on that, sir? What did you mean by that? How does that manifest? And can I also ask, do you view Australia’s attempts to build-up its own military capacity, including through AUKUS, in the face of Beijing’s own massive military build-up – do you view that as a reasonable response? Or does Malaysia harbour concerns?

PRIME MINISTER ANWAR: You know these difficult questions [are] to be addressed to the host. But anyway, my reference to China-phobia is because the criticism levied against us [is] for giving additional focus to China – my response is, trade investments is open and right now China seems to be the leading investor and trade into Malaysia. Cumulatively [it is] still [the], United States of America, it’s an open trading policy to encourage investments overseas from foreign countries. But we are [an] independent nation, we are fiercely independent. We do not want to be dictated [to] by any force. So, [while] we remain to be an important friend to the United States or Europe and here in Australia, they should not preclude us from being friendly to one of our important neighbours, precisely China. That was the context. And if they have problems with China, they should not impose it upon us. We do not have a problem with China. So, that’s why I referred to the issue of China-phobia in the West.

Media press conference – Melbourne

Ibrahim’s responses:

“We are [an] independent nation, we are fiercely independent”

“We do not want to be dictated by any force”

“Don’t preclude us from being friendly to one of our important neighbours”

“If they have problems with China, they should not impose it upon us”

Were preceded by comments in an earlier interview with the Financial Times:

“Why must I be tied to one interest? I don’t buy into this strong prejudice against China, this China-phobia”

– Anwar Ibrahim interview with Financial Times, February 25, 2024

When reiterating this position, Prime Minister Anwar was not only speaking for Malaysia. He was also voicing the standpoint of the great majority of ASEAN member countries for whom painful experience of western colonial powers’ exploitation of Asia and the Pacific has been part of their history; neutrality is the cornerstone of their present foreign policy; and peaceful and beneficial relations with China has been the common denominator in the past and should continue in the foreseeable future, despite attempts by the US, Australia and other US allies to, as former Australian PM Paul Keating described, “rattle the China can”.

ASEAN’s position is very clear. It will protect and advance its own interests – not those of Australia, the US or China.

It is not only on China that PM Anwar Ibrahim has advice for Australia’s and the West’s mouthing what Asians and the rest of the world see as the hypocritical language of democracy, human rights, peace and rule of order whilst turning a blind eye to the US and West continuing record of exploitation, hegemony and war; and now the West’s defence of the ongoing genocide by Israel in Gaza.

Among nations of the world, Malaysia has been amongst the first and most critical against Israel for its retaliatory action in response to Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023.

In January 2024, Prime Minister Anwar wrote in X:

“This recent spate of brutal slaughter of innocent Palestinians is but a mere extension of a protracted seven decades of oppression and tyranny, clearly manifesting the hatred, revulsion and antagonism of the Israeli regime towards the Palestinian people,”

“Such a deep seated animosity is only matched by the insidious and heinous right-wing racist sentiments and views espoused by the Zionist leaders against the Palestinian people,”

Anwar has also been severely critical of Western countries for being silent

“To turn a blind eye to the atrocities committed by Israel, becoming effectively complicit in the insidious acts of crimes against humanity.”

Speaking at a national rally in support of the Palestinians earlier in October, Anwar disclosed that he had been threatened by Western powers for his criticism of the Israeli government following the war in Gaza.

“I will not be cowed and will remain steadfastly behind the Palestinian people.”

What next for the US and Australian foreign policy apparatchiks intent on bringing down China. And their colleagues attempting to ensure Israel’s imposition of its version of stability in the Middle East?

Keating and others of the Australian establishment, past and present, are fully aware that Australia has a large intelligence collecting and disseminating ability and is plugged into what the US feeds into its vast system (through ANZUS, Quad, Five Eyes and others) and through western mainstream media.

The game plan of the US has been to destabilise and bring down governments that are regarded as communist, socialist or competitive; as well as those seen as not sufficiently supplicant to US hegemony. Australia is not only a deputy sheriff in the Asia Pacific region in the US’s concerted efforts to bring down China. It is also sullying its standing as a sovereign nation and risks becoming the point man in any military conflict in the Asia Pacific region.

Apart from discreet and coercive pressure such as Anwar has experienced, the starting of small and big fires using politicians from the region is a favoured strategy of the US.

Anwar has had long experience fighting against forces attempting to discredit and destroy him in Malaysia.

He must now be prepared for external forces working behind the scene – perhaps now in collaboration with local forces – to knock him off the pedestal for his independent foreign policy tenet and advice to the Australian and international public.

https://johnmenadue.com/pm-anwar-ibrahim-rattles-australias-cage-on-sinophobia-and-gaza/

 

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