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The lesson from the UK-EU split should not be one of smugness, but that regional cooperation only exists thanks to citizens’ permission.
For decades the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was judged as a pale imitator of the European Union.
ASEAN was weaker, enjoyed less support from its members, achieved less substantively and, at the most polemic, was nothing more than a captive of the inter-state power competition between its member states, while the EU was a decisive step away from such regressive practices.
Recently this judgement has been overturned.
The EU now faces a daunting list of challenges – the ongoing debt crisis in Greece, the increasing criticism by right wing political groups of fundamental EU agreements on freedom of movement within the Union, the refugee crisis and the growth of secessionist movements in member states – the UK and Spain Being just two of the biggest examples. Of course, the EU now faces its biggest and most existential challenge yet, the maelstrom of politics and division launched with the UK Referendum that has resulted in ‘Brexit”.
ASEAN, meanwhile, has largely avoided such a scale of threats. It’s regional community building project continues, albeit fitfully, and while there is perennial criticism of ASEAN’s ability to address many of the tasks delegated to it, there is not the widespread opposition to Jakarta as there now is to Brussels. The ongoing tensions over ASEAN unity when addressing the South China Sea issue may be intellectually and politically interesting, but they are not the source of widespread public criticism.
It would be a mistake, however, to say that Brexit does not serve as a warning to ASEAN.
The current situation in the UK reminds me of the social emergencies that surrounded the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis and the widespread rejection from the people of ASEAN of the regional project to that moment, the belief that the regional organisation had lost touch with the needs of the people and was actually, through its practices, hurting them further.
From this perspective the parallels between 1997 and Brexit are clear – domestic political constituencies that formerly were happy to permit the ongoing development of regional affairs suddenly withdrew their support for that project and demanded radical change; resulting in Brexit in the EU case and the ultimately quite radical reorganisation of ASEAN in the Southeast Asian case.
ASEAN and the EU are very different beasts (as former ASEAN Secretary General Surin Pitsuwan notes, the EU is ASEAN’s inspiration but certainly not its model), but both ignore at their peril the need to constantly demonstrate their real world and practical benefit to the poorest and most marginalised who live within them.
The lesson ASEAN should draw from ‘Brexit’ is not then a smug ‘well that will never happen here’ – instead it has to be a realisation that regional cooperation is predicated on domestic permission for those activities to take place. That permission is not generated by abstract arguments about integration, but by the immediate lived experiences, livelihoods and yes emotions of citizens. Without this demonstration, any regional project has dangerously weak foundations.
Here I think ASEAN is very exposed, a product of its particular approach to regional affairs. ASEAN has recently been increasing its commitments to the improvement of ‘people-centric’ activities (including but not limited to human rights promotion, environmental protection, climate change and disaster management), in the belief that ASEAN must be seen to be doing something.
All very good, until you remember that ASEAN is still woefully weak when it comes to living up to those commitments – there is a huge gap between what ASEAN says it is doing and what it is actually doing or perceived to be doing. Making commitments and failing to achieve them and ignoring that failure may be the ASEAN way, but it is a dangerous path to protecting your broader legitimacy in societies where there are so many in need of assistance.
Brexit then is a warning against complacency – against the belief that just because elites feel things are going well that there are no problems. Yes ASEAN and the EU are different, in form, in function, in intention and even in the challenges they face. Both, however, are predicated on the ongoing legitimacy of their activities in the eyes of the people themselves.
In the UK this legitimacy has been overturned and resulted in an unprecedented crisis for both London and Brussels. ASEAN leaders must be mindful to not make the same mistakes.
Dr Mathew Davies is head of the Department of International Relations in the ANU Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs.
This article is a collaboration between New Mandala and Policy Forum – Asia and the Pacific’s leading platform for policy analysis and debate.
China serves a warning to ASEAN, and Brexit makes that warning more imminent and existential. That would be the more accurate reading of what has happened. UK freed from EU trade restrictions does not harm the UK, neither does it harm China, which will continue to conquer and divide ASEAN. That is a more relevant impact on ASEAN than Brexit directly.
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ASEAN is a totally ineffectual rich elite club that did nothing about transborder issues, a raisin d’être of performance, such as haze and boat people from Bangladesh and Rakhine state Burma
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Amongst other issues, there are two main factors that differentiate the EU from ASEAN. The first is the common currency, and the second is the attitude towards immigration. If the European countries had kept the sovereign currencies, then the local currency, for example the Greek Drachma, if it had been allowed to float, would have depreciated, thus allowing Greek exports to be cheaper on the world market, with the economic benefits that would have arisen. The ‘strength’ of the currency is dependent on the strength of the economy, and the strength of the economy to a great extent depends on the strength of the currency. Greece had a weak economy but a strong currency; the Euro, which was a disastrous contradiction. ASEAN does not suffer that economic contradiction. Secondly, the attitude towards immigration, and the current circumstances regarding immigration, are totally different in ASEAN. ASEAN governments are not the least bit coy about closing their borders against unwanted immigrants, as shown by the inhumane treatment of ‘boat people’ attempting to escape religious persecution in Myanmar. Limiting immigration and having strong laws governing ‘aliens’ and severely limiting the rights of ‘aliens’ to enter and live in the country are usual in ASEAN countries. Nobody cares, nobody cries ‘racism’, ‘Islamophobia’ is a uniquely western term with no currency or equivalent in ASEAN countries. So, as far as the vast majority in ASEAN are concerned, immigration is not an issue. Also, even within this highly restrictive legal situation, ASEAN countries do not have millions of disaffected or tormented ‘aliens’, predominantly of an almost antagonistic culture and religion, demanding to be let in and accommodated. An associated difference between the EU and ASEAN is that each country in ASEAN, as a result of the immigration laws and attitudes, still have predominantly homogenous population ethnically and religiously. Where there are religious minorities (Muslims in Myanmar, Muslims in the south of Thailand, both predominantly Buddhist countries, Christians and ethnic Chinese in Muslim Malaysia) there are problems similar to the EU with the current flood of Muslim migrants. To demand a stop to or for restrictions on this mass influx to Europe is to be called ‘racist’ or ‘fascist’ or ‘bigot’ or ‘xenophobic’, in Europe, but in ASEAN it would be considered appropriate protection of the Culture. A final comment is that Europeans are far less willing to conform to governmental restrictions and restraints than populations in ASEAN, and European governments are far less willing to force such conformity on the population than is evident in ASEAN.
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Europe is bound to maintain their human rights values to (try to) maintain their soft power. ASEAN does not care about such. The thing is ASEAN has no soft power because it is still developing.
Lower standards of living ensures that the influx of migrants will not pour into ASEAN for decades.
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Islam is an existential threat to free society, women, LGBT children, so is Buddhism in Burma and Thailand. ASEAN is pathetic because it will not intervene in other nations wrong doing and genocide
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‘Boat people’ are not attempting to escape religious persecution in Myanmar. The conflict in Rakhine State is about land ownership and illegal immigration, and it has nothing to do with religion.
As for Brexit, it is primarily a rejection of US corporate capitalism. According to John Pilger, ‘The aim of this extremism is to install a permanent, capitalist theocracy that ensures a two-thirds society, with the majority divided and indebted, managed by a corporate class, and a permanent working poor.’
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Oh, I thought that large scale murder of members of a specific religious minority by the religious hierarchy and adherents to the majority religion does constitute religious persecution and does imply the involvement of religion. But then, I obviously didn’t factor in the great boogeyman of ‘US corporate capitalism’ and use big words like ‘capitalist theocracy’. Sorry, but it does seem my views are naive in the extreme.
Frankly, citing John Pilger as your authoritative reference does not influence me at all. Pilger made his name from simplistic, popularist left-wing commentary, which is very obvious in the quote that you have chosen. Even conjuring up the term ‘capitalist theocracy’ seems nothing more than a typical Pilgeristic journalistic device to sound authoritative.
I think I’ll stick to my view of the current and very obvious religiously inspired persecution of minorities, perhaps modifying my terminology slightly to include ‘political Buddhism’ to reflect the same concept as ‘political Islam’. Seems more appropriate than ‘capitalist theocracy’.
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In some cultures it is not possible to separate religion and ethnic identity, as we do in the West. So the fact that the Chittagonians attend mosques and the Arakanese attend temples is not actually relevant at all. The conflict is between two very different ethnic groups and it is all about land and resources.
‘…large scale murder…by the religious hierarchy’. I will also modify my terminology slightly; ‘rowlocks’.
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Wiratu 969 movement of Buddhist nationalism hates Muslims as do many Royalist racist Thai monks
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