Title: Symposium on the 50Thanniversary of ASEAN with H.E
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Title: Symposium on the 50thAnniversary of ASEAN with H.E. Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, Former Secretary-General of ASEAN Organizers: ASEAN-Japan Centre, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Thailand and Royal Thai Embassy in Tokyo Supporters: Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), KEIDANREN, Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (JCCI) Period: 14:00-15:35, Friday, May 19, 2017 Venue: Bellesalle Onarimon Hall, Tokyo Language: Japanese-English Simultaneous Interpretation Keynote Speech "Challenges for ASEAN in the Changing Regional and Global Landscape” H.E. Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, Former Secretary-General of ASEAN (2008-2012) H.E. Dr. Surin Pitsuwan Your Excellency Bansarn Bunnag, the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Thailand to Japan, our co-host today with Mr. Fujita, the Secretary General of Japan-ASEAN Center. Director General of the Department of ASEAN from Bangkok, who had offered you what he call a sorbet. And he was telling you to expect the main course. I think the main course will need some Tabasco. Excellencies, the Ambassadors of Laos, Cambodia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, and Vietnam, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, it is great honor and a great pleasure for me to be with you at this very, very special event recognizing celebrating the 50th Anniversary of ASEAN. I played a small part in that first half of the century of this organization, but I was also instrumental in many decisions that ASEAN and Southeast Asia have made together during my time as Foreign Minister and Deputy Foreign Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand. So, I have seen the evolution of ASEAN from the very, very formative years, first one or two decades into its maturity, and now celebrating the Golden Anniversary. I guess many of you must have had a lot of information, a lot of knowledge already about the growth of ASEAN since 1967 up to now. But the fact that it could evolve into a community and could face and successfully manage a lot of contending pressures, conflicting interests around us and within us, and also a lot of changes in the environment of Southeast Asia, of East Asia, of the global community. How did we survive along the way? I think it would be better for me to talk to you about the steps, the decisions, the improvisations that our leaders, that our officials have made along the way handling some of those very, very difficult challenges. So with that kind of understanding, together we will see that we will continue to grow and will continue to flourish into the future amidst the changing environment that we are now witnessing. I would describe ASEAN as 50 years of balancing acts. It was born out of atmosphere of conflict and contention in Southeast Asia. It was born out Page 1 of 14 of conflict between Malaysia and Indonesia. It was born out of tension and conflict between Malaysia and the Philippines. This was the ‘60s. It was born out of the conflict and tension in Vietnam, in Indochina. We formed together only five and we issued the Bangkok Declaration on the 8th of August 1967, and we were born within the environment of a lot of skepticism about us in Southeast Asia. The British Embassy in Bangkok sends a telegram to the Foreign Office in London saying that, “These new countries have tried many architectures of cooperation before among themselves, but they have all failed.” The cable continues, “This one seems to have some promise – ASEAN. But we the British do not have to give them any birthday gift because we have given them the most important gift of all, ‘The English language’.” That is in a cable to the Foreign Office in London. You could see that there is a lot of skepticism, a lot of uncertainty about how ASEAN could survive. But we have survived and we have managed those challenges and those contending pressures quite well to the point where we could accommodate countries across the Mekong River, who in the beginning was the other and ASEAN was us five: Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. But through the first 3 decades we were able to accommodate and integrate the Indochina countries into our tent, into our camp. And later on Myanmar joined, complete 10 Southeast Asian countries as the name denotes the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. We were born out of this euphoria about newly independent countries forming together into something called the “Non-Aligned Movement”; Bandung Conference Indonesia, Africa-Asia Afro-Asia Conference. We were born out of this Third World, First World, Second World conflicts. Our leaders decided that the global stage was too big and it was too large, and it was full of major personalities like Nehru of India, like Nasser of Egypt, like Tito of Yugoslavia, like Zhou Enlai of China. The ASEAN countries would lose our identity, would lose our own space to maintain ourselves into the world. Therefore, the idea of ASEAN was conceived. Now, when we organized ourselves into this small manageable size, if you think of it, we reversed the way in which the European Union got together. In the case of the European Community, major countries, former enemies came together: France, Germany and Italy, and formed something called the “Common Market” based on steel, based on energy. In the case of ASEAN, small and medium sized countries came together and trying to maintain our identities, trying to protect and defend and promote our own interests later on through dialogue partnership, which is an ASEAN invention. We brought in Japan, bigger, larger, and in the words of Prime Minister Mahathir “More important to us.” We brought in China, we brought in Korea, we brought in India, we brought in Australia, we brought New Zealand, we brought in the US, we brought in Russia, we brought in Canada all the way, and we brought in the EU. It is the reverse process of the EU; smaller-medium sized getting together and bring the bigger ones to be associated with us. Page 2 of 14 Now, we have been successful in again offering the platform for the contending powers, contending interests from around the world to play on our platform, on our stage. And somehow they found ASEAN threatening none, welcoming all. So, we have been able to create a platform that everyone – every player regardless of size could feel welcome and could feel that they get something out of it. In the end through the years ASEAN has gained this very important tool that we have in our hands and I would call it the ‘Convening Power.’ We convene a meeting, everybody wants to come because everybody feels comfortable, everybody feels that they could get something out of it to go home, could articulate their hopes, their aspirations, their interests, whether or not other parties would agree but they have articulated and they would walk away and next year they would come and go over many of those issues together again. ASEAN has secured for ourselves that power to convene. And in this landscape called East Asia, we are different from Europe according to Henry Kissinger. And that difference is we do not have the processes, we do not have the system, we do not have the institutions. And in the language of Kissinger, if something happened, I do not know what telephone number to call. Not here in East Asia, because there is no institution, there is no process, there is no system. ASEAN has been trusted with that institutional building here in the region. And through that effort of building processes, systems, and institution to manage our own differences, our own historical baggage, our own flashpoints, ASEAN have earned and have gained a lot of trust, a lot of confidence along the way. We did not have summit until 1976. It was born in 1967; nine years later we had the first summit in Bali. And that was when we conceived of a new instrument for the region called the ‘Treaty of Amity and Cooperation – TAC.’ Everyone has to join, accede to that treaty and every dialogue partner from anywhere in the world will have to accede to that instrument. So it is one instrument region-wide, in fact global, that ASEAN has contributed to the global community so that we can manage this powerhouse. Fifty years of ASEAN, first half century of ASEAN coincides with the growth, the flourishing, and the development of East Asia to the point where some would argue that this could be the century of the Asia-Pacific. We have been present at the creation of that century. Why did I say this? I say this because we had a lesson back in 1997-1998 when the first Asian Financial Crisis came. After growth, growth, growth, double digit growth in Southeast Asia, growth, growth, growth until July 1997, our currency was devalued. We all failed. First was Thailand, second was Malaysia, third was Indonesia, Philippines; a lot of turmoil, a lot of instability, a lot of failures. What did that tell us? It told us that we were more connected than we thought we were. Otherwise, it would not happen in Thailand, the next day Malaysia, the next week Indonesia, and the next week the Philippines all the way to Korea, because we were more connected than we thought we were. Somehow we learn the lesson and that lesson Page 3 of 14 was getting together and establishing something called the ‘Chiang Mai Initiative.’ Putting aside US$122 billion as this contingency fund so that when any economy of the 13 countries: ASEAN 10, plus China, plus Japan, plus Korea, 13, any got into trouble like we did in 1997, the first line of defense would not be the IMF.