The future of the EU-ASEAN relationship | New Mandala

The future of the EU-ASEAN relationship | New Mandala
Carlo Filippini, 23 MAY 2016

The EU and ASEAN share some relevant aspects but at the same time important differences; both are born out of international (to counter threats from bordering communist powers) and internal (to avert new almost brotherly conflicts) security needs and grow mainly as economic entities: the EU because of the French veto to the European Defence Community in August 1954, the ASEAN because the “domino” theory did not actualize due to the Sino-Soviet conflict at the end of the 1960s and the 1979 war between China and Vietnam.

As far as ASEAN is concerned in the recent years, after decades of inactivity, a few important projects have been agreed on and (almost) carried out: the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) signed in 1992, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and the ASEAN Charter, a sort of basic law or bill of rights, both signed in 2007; future targets are listed in ASEAN 2025: Forging Ahead Together, November 2015. In the same years important international agreements have been implemented: just to mention one, the Chiang Mai Initiative (2000), later strengthened as the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (2010), in order to reduce the likelihood of a new 1997 Asian currency and economic crisis.

ASEAN and EU with 620 and 510 million people respectively are the third and the fourth largest entities by population (2015) and the seventh and the first by GDP with USD 2.6 and 18.5 trillion (2014) respectively.

The two groups are quite inhomogeneous as far as ethnic groups, language, religion, history, and values are concerned; the member states are very diverse: in the EU we have Malta with 0.4 and Germany with 82 million people, or Bulgaria and Luxembourg with a GDP per capita five times higher, and in the ASEAN Cambodia and Singapore with a GDP per capita fifty times bigger.

The EU is ASEAN’s second largest trading partner: EUR 180 billion in goods and 70 billion in services were traded in 2014; in the previous twenty years the trade grew on average by 7% annually, with a structural EU deficit. The EU is the biggest provider of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into ASEAN with EUR 23.9 billion, some 22% of the total; at the end of 2013 it held FDI stocks of EUR 156 billion, 60% of which were concentrated in Singapore. About ten million people travel between the two regions each year for tourism, study, business, and otherwise; exchange of scholars and students is rapidly increasing as is the cooperation between research centres.

The ASEAN and EU’s deepest differences concern private-public and interpersonal relations and the importance of laws and written agreements versus long-term informal commitments and familiarity; the wide-spread Confucianism favours harmony even to the prejudice of justice and prefers hierarchical relations to equalitarian ones. This philosophy has been carried by the Overseas Chinese, sometimes the majority (as in Singapore), sometimes a small minority (as in Indonesia), but always in control of the local economies. In Europe there is a union among states, in Asia an association among nations: this is not simply a choice of words.

ASEAN-EU relations have been quite soft up to the end of the last millennium, particularly because Europe deemed irrelevant the whole of Asia. The old colonial powers usually kept strong links with their former colonies pursuing domestic interests, often at the expenses of other EU member states. In 1996 the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) was set up by the then EU-15 and ASEAN-7 plus China, Japan, and (South) Korea; the Asian countries took the initiative wishing to counterbalance the USA hegemony. While the EU never became a real alternative to the USA, ASEM (enlarged to more than 50 countries) is now a very important forum to discuss, and try to solve, global problems and, even more, an occasion to hold informal meetings between conflicting states.

In 2006 a deep crisis explodes: Myanmar, still under the military junta, ought to act as chair of ASEAN; the EU threatens to break all relations if this happens. The solution looks very “harmonious”: under pressure Myanmar renounces to the chair (kept by Thailand for a second year) but reserves the right to ask for it in a successive year at her choice.

In that same year the EU identifies South-East Asia as an area of strategic interest and begins negotiations to sign a FTA. After years of useless meetings it gives up the idea and negotiates bilateral FTAs with individual ASEAN member states; these agreements have different new names to stress their quite wider contents: not just tariffs on goods only but rules on services, investments, competition, property rights, and so on. A joke says that FTAs signed by ASEAN are ten-page long plus a set of appendixes a thousand-page long, detailing exceptions asked by every member state but Singapore.

Presently the EU has signed (even if not yet ratified) FTAs with Singapore and Vietnam, is negotiating with the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar and has signed a special agreement with Indonesia (2009); Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar are part of the European Everything but arms (EBA) initiative granting duty- and quota-free access to all goods.

The future of their economic partnership will depend on the policies ASEAN and EU implement in order to win the present, complex, and serious challenges they are facing; in the EU: immigrants, fiscal constraints to growth, banking union; in the ASEAN: economic dualism, middle income trap, rigidity of the non-intervention principle and relations with China (in particular, disputes in the South China Sea).

To the EU it is very relevant that ASEAN might conclude its economic integration process fully and rapidly, eliminate non-tariff barriers and FDI restrictions, liberalize financial markets, harmonize and make more predictable customs procedures. These problems are not simple but can be solved.

The king still never smiles | New Mandala

The king still never smiles | New Mandala
Nicholas Farrelly, 9 MAY 2016

First published at Mekong Review, a quarterly literary journal based in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej took the Chakri throne in June 1946. His remarkable 70-year reign is now the longest in Thai history, straddling multiple generations and a period of immense economic, political and technological change. As time marches on, the proportion of the Thai population that has known any other monarch has vanished. Where others have faded, King Bhumibol has survived.

In the decade since Paul Handley’s The King Never Smiles: A biography of Thailand’s Bhumibol Adulyadej was published, Thai society has lost its democratic facade. There have been two military coups, dozens of violent clashes in Bangkok, and hundreds of people have been locked up after finding themselves on the wrong side of callous political determinations. Others have been forced to seek sanctuary abroad. This chapter in King Bhumibol’s long reign has seen a miserable confrontation between duelling elites and the stark polarisation of political opinion in the provinces.

At the street level, this conflict has usually been painted in hues of ‘red’ and ‘yellow’, but anyone who watches closely knows it is more complicated than that. The reality can prove brutally disheartening. Like in many drawn-out political battles, much of the aggression is reserved for perceived traitors and deviants. Nonetheless, while the ‘yellows’ continue to exalt in the reflected glory of Bhumibol’s charismatic eminence, there are some courageous voices in the ‘red’ corner that ask penetrating questions of the royals and this noteworthy reign. These still have Handley to thank for presenting a considered rebuke to the painstakingly manicured mythology of a royal household above politics, supposedly disconnected from petty financial or personal concerns.

Handley invested many years disentangling the offcial narrative from the facts. His book is critical, yes, but also ultimately empathetic in its portrayal of a king whose ascension came at a moment of unspeakable personal, dynastic and national tragedy. Handley suggests that King Bhumibol never fully recovered from the death of his brother, King Ananda Mahidol, and the shock of his own elevation to the throne. This dark shadow, like much else in Handley’s book, is not supposed to be discussed in Thailand. Since the publication of The King Never Smiles, the country’s draconian and vindictive lèse majesté law has become the preferred weapon for battering the vulnerable and the brave. It has been used with increasing enthusiasm by weak governments, including today’s militocracy, looking to buttress their royalist credentials. In practice, the law is used to stamp out dissent and punish opponents. It is ludicrously difficult to mount any effective defence to a lèse majesté charge, and the accused often end up seeking a reduction in punishment with a guilty plea.

Handley’s book has been caught up in these proceedings. Joe Gordon, a Thai American, spent thirteen months in jail for translating portions of the text. A full Thai language translation has been available, online, for years, but it is dangerous to ‘like’ or ‘share’ it. In the recent past, before the relative anarchy offered by the online realm, it was possible to maintain a single version of the royal truth. Today’s multiplicity of perspectives and narratives makes that impossible.

In response, there has been a massive investment made in fortifying the story of King Bhumibol as Thailand’s exemplary centre, a semi-divine presence bestowing prosperity and security on the common people. In 2012, for example, the palace supported the publication of the epic King Bhumibol: A life’s work, which offers a favourable interpretation of his role in the country’s development. This lavish rejoinder is not without merit, but should, in all circumstances, be read alongside The King Never Smiles. The problem is that Handley’s work is still deemed far too explosive to be openly available inside Thailand. Following a pattern established in the final year of Thaksin Shinawatra’s prime ministership, subsequent Thai governments have kept up the fiction that the book poses a credible threat to national security. Over time, this directive has been extended to other writers, websites and publications.

Yet the official Thai retort to Handley’s exertion has failed. Handley’s work still motivates some good analysis of the royal family across its economic, political and cultural dimensions. We now know much more about the holdings of the Crown Property Bureau, thanks in large part to the impressive sleuthing of Porphant Ouyyanont. Regarding politics, a rising generation of Thai scholars has grappled with a re-militarised and contentious landscape, with notable contributions by writers like Aim Sinpeng, Prajak Kongkirati and Pitch Pongsawat. Then there is the story of the king as a cultural icon. Perhaps the most incisive analysis of this issue is by the impressive young German scholar, Serhat Ünaldi. Other durable writers like Kevin Hewison, Duncan McCargo, Nick Nostitz, and Andrew MacGregor Marshall, have also made an impact.

It is MacGregor Marshall who has kept up the most consistent criticism of the political and economic meddling of the royal family. His A Kingdom in Crisis: Thailand’s Struggle for Democracy in the Twenty-First Century draws on a wide range of source material, including Wikileaks cables, to eviscerate royalist mythology. His account of recent Thai political conflict argues that the succession remains unresolved. MacGregor Marshall insists there is deep unease among the country’s power brokers over Crown Prince Vajiralongkorn’s prospective elevation to the throne. From this perspective, the 2006 and 2014 coups make sense as preparation for handling a crisis right at the apex of Thai society.

To read the rest of the essay click here.

Nicholas Farrelly is co-founder of New Mandala. 

Thai junta to get its report card | New Mandala

Thai junta to get its report card | New Mandala
Paul Sanderson, 10 MAY 2016

Many have promised to bring Thailand together, but only succeeded in uniting people against them. The increasingly-isolated Thai junta could soon get the measure of their own popularity, Paul Sanderson writes.

Uniting the country is so often the catch-cry of those who would do anything but. In Thailand, a succession of prime ministers both elected and not have pledged to bring the country together as more than a decade of bitter division has seethed and occasionally flared into violence.

Former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s administration gave probably the most obvious example of this when their ill-advised attempt to introduce a bill at 3am giving a sweeping amnesty to the country’s greatest political troublemakers, including her fugitive brother, only succeeded in uniting the country against them. Many of those aligned ideologically with the ruling party, and even several government MPs, joined the chorus of condemnation.

History, as is its wont, is in danger of repeating itself. The military regime, known officially as the National Council for Peace and Order, will mark its second anniversary on May 22. It has held power almost as long as Yingluck had before the Pheu Thaiparty’s tactical blunder.

The junta is embarking on a referendum as it finds itself increasingly isolated: Fewer and fewer voices speak out in support of Prayut Chan-o-cha’s regime and the draft charter it almost dictated to chief constitution writer Meechai Ruchupan.

Even those who were anti-Yingluck in 2013 have condemned the NCPO’s transparent plan to cling on to power for a further five years after the slated 2017 election, should it go ahead. Former PM Abhisit Vejjajiva, who was on the streets for some of the Bangkok Shutdown protests, spoke out against the draft constitution, saying it “distorts” democracy and “weakens people’s power”.

The regime is not quite at the point of uniting the country against it, but the August 7 referendum and the crackdown on dissent will seriously test its support.

The Election Commission has expressed confidence of a turnout of 80 per cent,telling Reuters about 51 million people were eligible to cast a vote. This would be significantly higher than the 57 per cent who turned out for the comparable 2007 referendum on a military-led charter, although commissioner Somchai Srisuthiyakorn would not say why. (Somchai, it is worth noting, is a controversial figure himself.)

It would also be a higher turnout than most general elections of the past 20 years, which have hovered between 60 and 70 per cent – the outliers being the 2007 post-coup poll when 85 per cent went to the polls as the ousted Thaksin Shinawatra and his opponents rallied support, and the 2014 pre-coup ballot, when about 47 per cent  of eligible voters showed up amid protests, cancellations and after a shooting designed to scare people away.

The suggestion that 40 million people could vote on  August 7 may be based on optimistic interpretations of polling. A Suan Dusit poll in mid-April found 85 per cent of respondents thought the constitution was important to the country’s future. But they may as well have asked whether they thought the record-breaking summer was hot: of course it’s important.

A closer look at the results, from a polling agency that has produced headlines favourable to the regime, reveals two-thirds were not impressed by the draft constitution. Curiously, 73 per cent said they might have “other things to do” on the day of the election. More than half said politics served only vested interests and thought the referendum was a waste of money.

The Election Commission made another public foray at the end of April, issuing a list of dos and don’ts for those keen on campaigning. The don’ts are problematic, with activists and political figures questioning the vagueness of phrases such as “false information”, “incite the public politically” and “incites unrest”.

The commission’s guide came after the junta, more worryingly, declared that expressing too strong an opinion in the lead-up to the referendum could bring about a 10-year jail term. Other penalties include a potential 10-year ban from politics and hefty fines. There have already been arrests.

This being a country where smiles are shallow and cynicism runs deep, there is always another theory or three. One goes that the referendum is being set up to fail: Gen Prayut’s terse replies when pressed on what would happen in that event suggest there is a contingency plan they want to keep guarded. Another goes that the smattering of protests will be used to justify calling the referendum off altogether: the roadmap to elections has already been pushed out two years and the military sank its first draft, so there is precedent. Other speculation quickly turns into sad stories of the death of kings.

There is a mindset that the military wasted the 2006 coup and returned the country to democracy too quickly. No chances are being taken this time. This is not a new observation, but with the referendum coming into focus it is worth asking just how long the status quo will be tolerated.

Chulalongkorn University’s Thitinan Pongsudhirak raised all these points in April, with a forecast of long-term military rule and a road ahead that will “most likely be marked by more turmoil”.

The junta is determined to be around in some capacity until at least 2022. The referendum is not likely to alter its grand plans, but it will provide some indication of how much of the country is united behind them, and how much against.

Paul Sanderson is a pen name. The author is an independent writer and consultant based in and around Southeast Asia.

This article is published as a collaboration between New Mandala and Policy Forum, Asia and the Pacific’s platform for analysis and discussion on public policy.