Singapore: Ridge Books [an imprint of NUS Press]; The University of Chicago Press [distributor], 2017. xvi, 264 pp. (Figures, maps, illustrations.) US$20.00, cloth. ISBN 978-981-4722-49-0.
In August 1967 the representatives of the original five members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand—signed the Bangkok Declaration. Many commentators at the time thought that ASEAN would be yet another short-lived regional organization. Indeed, ASEAN has always had its share of sceptics, especially after it expanded to include Brunei, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, and finally Cambodia. Naysayers have called it a “talk shop,” preoccupied by process and thus ineffective, producing very few concrete results. Yet at the same time ASEAN is often viewed as the most successful regional organization after the European Union (EU). The competition is not too stiff but nonetheless it suggests that this more positive view of ASEAN should be better understood. This book, by two eminent scholar-practitioners of the region, celebrates ASEAN’s fiftieth anniversary by making a detailed, thoughtful, readable, and in many ways provocative case for seeing the association in a very positive light.
At the heart of the argument set out by Mahbubani and Sng is that ASEAN, as a regional organization, has brought enduring peace and considerable prosperity to a large, diverse, and formerly very troubled region. They start out by showing how Southeast Asia’s already immensely varied geography and vast variety of languages and cultures were influenced by the arrival of four very different external civilizations: Indian, Chinese, Muslim, and Western. They then ask why and how ASEAN brought about an “ecosystem of peace” in this exceptionally diverse region. They suggest five factors. First, they see the fear of communism as keeping the original members focussed on cooperation and later maintaining peace in the region by admitting their former communist adversaries into ASEAN. Second, the authors single out strong ASEAN leaders, who were in power over many of the early years of ASEAN, as crucial to maintaining a sense of regional cooperation and peace. Third, they see geopolitical luck in terms of being on the winning side in the Cold War as helping to promote regional peace. Fourth, they view the adoption of a market-oriented approach to economic development as helping to promote regional prosperity and peace. Finally, they argue that ASEAN-based regional networks have helped to integrate the ASEAN region and link ASEAN members to the wider East Asian region.
The middle chapters of the book provide a brief history and analysis of ASEAN’s relations with the great powers—America, China, the European Union, India, and Japan—as well as a series of “pen sketches” of the ten ASEAN members and an assessment of ASEAN’s strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps inevitably ASEAN’s relationships with the US and China get the most space, but for all the different relationships it is fascinating to get a decidedly ASEAN perspective on the way they have unfolded over the years. The “pen sketches” are idiosyncratic but essentially very positive. Mahbubani and Sng see ASEAN’s main strengths as the array of institutions that have been developed to support the strong sense of regional community and the fact that many of the great powers are willing to promote and support the association. They identify ASEAN’s weaknesses as the lack of a clear “owner” of the association and the fact that it is viewed as a governmental organization with little or no input from the region’s general public. They also see the secretariat as too small and weak for the tasks that need to be done. These weaknesses, they quite reasonably suggest, could in the future leave ASEAN overwhelmed by great power rivalries in the region or undone by domestic instability within member states. But overall, the authors are very positive about ASEAN and its future.
The culmination of the book is the final chapter, which sets out the authors’ argument for awarding ASEAN the Nobel Peace Prize. By providing long-term peace and prosperity, as well as “civilizing” the big powers in their dealings with Southeast Asia, Mahbubani and Sng see ASEAN as every bit as deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize as the EU, which won it in 2012. However, ASEAN’s Achilles heel is clearly its poor track record on democratization and safe-guarding human rights, neither of which the authors discuss in any detail. It is unlikely, given recent controversies over previous Nobel Peace Prize recipients, that the Norwegian-based prize committee will give the award to an organization which includes some member states that have backed-tracked on democratization and others that have flagrantly abused the human rights of their citizens. However, the authors have won a prize of sorts in that their book is scheduled to be translated into all the major ASEAN languages so that it can be read by a wider audience in the hope of instilling greater pride in ASEAN among its citizens. Certainly, students of Southeast Asia and regionalism—whether ASEAN sceptics or proponents—can learn a good deal from reading this spirited and informed defence of the organization.
Richard Stubbs
McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada