VN celebrates successful ASEAN year

The 17th ASEAN Summit with its associated gatherings and more than 30 documents approved in just three days in Ha Noi last week ended an extremely successful year for the association.

It was also a triumph for Viet Nam's chairmanship.

The ten members of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations can be proud of their achievements which include the consolidation of solidarity and integration; the raising of the association's international status and the boosting of its ties with its major partners.

All will serve the overriding task of building a tight-knit and powerful community by 2015.

Memories of the 1997 financial crisis were still fresh when the global economy contracted last year and it seemed doubtful that member countries could both withstand the crisis as well as follow the map prepared for their economic co-operation.

But the member countries collaborated to walk through the crisis relatively unscathed.

They managed to sign the first collective arrangement for member countries to address financial and economic challenges, the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation Agreement last year.

And implementation of the ASEAN Free Trade Area for the original six members – Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Brunei, and Singapore – took effect at the beginning of the year.

Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Viet Nam are committed to joining in 2015.

The FTA requires that member countries reduce import duty for a list of goods and services among member countries to between 0 and 5 per cent.

The Connectivity Master Plan – adopted at the 17th summit just one year after Thailand initiated it – also showed ASEAN in action.

The plan, which aims to enhance physical structure, institutional and people-to-people connectivity in ASEAN, marks further progress in member-country integration and is also likely to expand links with East Asia.

ASEAN's success in ensuring the participation of Russia and the United States in last week's East Asia Summit was another remarkable achievement.

The summit, which allows senior Asia-Pacific representatives to discuss political and strategic issues, has assumed a central role since it was initiated just five years ago.

The decision of the former protagonists, especially the US, to join affirms the determination of their governments to foster deeper long-term engagement and recognition of ASEAN as the key builder of an evolving regional structure.

The achievement becomes even more profound when we remember the US government's former ambiguity about ASEAN's regional role.

"ASEAN now occupies a higher standing in the global community," asserted Pham Quang Vinh, secretary to Viet Nam's foreign minister Pham Gia Khiem.
It has been an extraordinary year for ASEAN's external relations with a record number of summits with ASEAN's major partners, said the man who oversees Viet Nam's senior ASEAN officials.

In addition to its yearly summits with China, Japan, South Korea, ASEAN also held a series of separate summits with almost all other major partners, including Australia, New Zealand, India and the United Nations.

Proactive

Viet Nam showed its commitment to ASEAN's development both as chairman and host of almost all the association's gatherings in 2010.

It is now 15 years since Viet Nam joined ASEAN and this year's successful organisation of the association's summits and activities is proof that the country is a proactive, enthusiastic and highly responsible member.

Viet Nam managed to organise the first ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus that gathered 18 defence ministers from the association and its partner countries, including China, Russia and the US, to discuss the major security issues confronting the Asia-Pacific region.

It did so at a time of fierce territorial disputes among regional countries.

In addition, ASEAN foreign ministers and senior officials travelled the East-West Economic Corridor through Thailand, Laos and Viet Nam for the first time in the association's 43-year history.

Their purpose was to attend a meeting intended to promote closer co-operation between policy-makers and closer links between ASEAN member countries.

The theme for Viet Nam's year as chairman was "Towards an ASEAN Community: From Vision to Action" and the country worked hard to avert the common perception that the group is just a talking shop.

As ASEAN secretary-general Suri Pitsuwan told Viet Nam television: "We are satisfied and inspired by Viet Nam's organisation of the summits and Viet Nam's role as the ASEAN's chairman.

"Everything is precise, perfect, and inspiring, which helps to boost delegate confidence to tackle the difficulties that ASEAN would face ahead," he said.

Vietnamese Diplomat Vinh conceded that the way ahead may be long and difficult.

Building an ASEAN community based on the pillars of political-security, economy and social-culture with more than 800 targets is itself a challenge given the association's supposed difficulties with execution, he said.

An estimated 30 per cent of ASEAN's agreements have not been implemented.

A March report that evaluated progress to form the ASEAN Economic Community showed that almost 20 per cent of "deliverables" agreed to under the AEC blueprint for the period 2008-09 had not been achieved.

There is also a major divide in the development and integration of ASEAN members, especially between the six founding members and Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Viet Nam.

International Monetary Fund research last year showed that Singapore's Gross Domestic Product – ASEAN's highest – is almost 64 times that of the lowest, Myanmar.

Success also creates its own difficulties.

A more active global role means difficulties in harmonising very different national interest to seek a strong common voice about important global issues.

But as Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono told the closing of the 17th Summit and as his country assumes the chairmanship: Viet Nam's year as chairman has made the association stronger. — VNS