SCMP: Humbled group to rethink its

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Subject: SCMP: Humbled group to rethink its role at secret summit

South China Morning Post :Saturday, July 17, 1999

ASEAN

Humbled group to rethink its role at secret summit

BARRY PORTER in Singapore

Regional foreign ministers will head to a secret retreat during their
Singapore summit next week to
rethink the purpose and future of the Association of Southeast Asian
Nations (Asean) after recent
fierce criticism.

"There is no fixed agenda," said a Singapore Foreign Ministry spokesman,
who stressed that this
was the start of a long-term renewal process.

Singapore, which is chairing the 10-member Asean meeting, acknowledged
there were anxieties
about the group's recent perceived weakness.

The spokesman said this was understandable since its largest member,
Indonesia, had recently been
preoccupied with internal problems. Indonesia's former president Suharto
had long been Asean's
dominant figure before being cajoled into retirement - leaving the group
largely leaderless.

"The Asian crisis has badly dented Asean's reputation . . . Asean, among
other things, has been
accused of not taking bolder initiatives to cope with the regional crisis,"
the spokesman said.

Asean members were fiercely criticised for not speaking up to warn Thailand
when they realised
their neighbour was heading towards a financial abyss in 1997.

The regional contagion caused by the Thai baht's plunge created the worst
regional economic slump
since World War II.

Asean also proved ineffective in dealing with Indonesia's forest fires,
which resulted in region-wide
haze in 1996 and 1997.

Its tradition of non-interference in member states' internal matters is
likely to be one of the hottest
issues debated next week.

One of the most contentious issues is the disputed Spratly Islands in the
South China Sea, which are
claimed in full or in part by China, Taiwan and Asean members Malaysia,
Brunei, Vietnam and the
Philippines. Manila intends to propose a common code of conduct to try to
ease the tensions.

Not being an Asean member, China will be excluded from the Spratlys talks.
Foreign Minister Tang
Jiaxuan will be in Singapore the following week for the Asean Regional
Forum but has said he was
not prepared to discuss the issue except on a bilateral basis.


The Singapore spokesman confirmed the European Union was not opposed this
time to Burma's
participation in scheduled Asean-EU talks.