Appreciating Asean

 

Regional togetherness: Asean’s first summits were irregular and distantly spaced. Now two summits are held regularly every year. — Bernama

Asean is a realities-grounded institution with certain strengths, which are hidden only to those who fail to appreciate them.

AS regional summits go, Asean’s has been growing by leaps and bounds. Not that this positive attribute is universally acknowledged, as is typical with Asean attributes.

Asean’s first summits were irregular and distantly spaced, and at one point even 12 years apart. Now two summits are held regularly every year, either together or spaced apart by months, with related Asean-led meetings in series.

Between summits, several hundred meetings of Asean officials are held each year to implement, oversee, and calibrate policies. The numerous meetings have prompted a misperception that Asean is merely a talkshop. 

Asean’s irregular summits proved that Asean leaders meet only when needed, as circumstances require, and not for the sake of meeting. Asean has never prioritised form over function, or ceremony over substance.

Asean is popular and successful for the common familiarity and shared comfort level leaders feel when they meet. These come only with frequent meetings forming a seamless web of mutual and reciprocal goodwill.

Critics cite the failure of the 2012 Asean Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Cambodia to issue a joint communiqué at its conclusion as a sign of weakness and inefficacy. But it takes decisiveness to opt not to issue a statement rather than produce a bland and meaningless one just for the sake of doing so.

Formal meetings are judged by how or whether they serve their purpose while in session, not by the feel good diplomatic summaries issued afterwards. As a process, Asean proceedings have seldom if ever been “full glasses”, but the uninitiated would see the “glasses” only as half-empty.

Asean’s core purpose has always been the quality of membership relations. How others see it is up to them, but this is no more than a concern for Asean’s public relations department if there is one.

Laos’ Asean chairmanship this year and its hosting of the 44th and 45th Summit over the week have predictably been scrutinised critically. A typical complaint is the seeming absence of any definitive resolution on the Myanmar impasse or the South China Sea disputes.

No annual summit is like a task force producing fail-safe solutions for outstanding issues. A small and underdeveloped Laos is already doing its best tackling the mammoth logistical and financial demands of hosting a series of international conferences at the highest official levels.

Any other country chairing Asean this year would face the same challenges. Asean makes no judgment about the economic status of members while helping less endowed members fulfil their financial obligations.

Asean is better at avoiding upheavals like Myanmar’s or war-torn Cambodia’s before its 1999 membership, than in conclusively resolving conflict that has occurred. It’s still not perfect, of course.

Asean’s record still compares favourably with the European Union’s, which failed to prevent the Kosovo and Ukraine wars. Nato (the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) as a military alliance may mitigate these conflicts but has instead instigated and amplified the Ukraine war.

The EU and Asean were once described as the world’s most successful regional organisations, in that order, but that was before Brexit, when Britain exited the EU in 2020. No Asean country has sought to leave despite some challenges, while several countries not eligible to join have nonetheless tried.

The next and final member of Asean is Timor-Leste, the former Portuguese territory and Indo-nesian province of East Timor. It is the only sovereign nation in South-East Asia still to join Asean.

Others, from Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea to Mongolia and Turkey, have reportedly sought Asean membership, but were never seriously considered. Timor-Leste is different not least because it is in South-East Asia, although its Asean journey has been long and challenging.

In 2006 Timor-Leste submitted a “soft application” to join, and the following year Asean signalled a “willingness in principle” to consider it. Most Asean member states endorsed its application, but not all.

Meanwhile Dili worked hard to fulfil membership requirements by acceding to Asean norms and conventions, including the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in South-East Asia. It even introduced Asean Studies in schools, unlike most Asean countries.

Dili formally applied to join Asean in 2011, and Asean responded in 2022 with an “agreement in principle” to admit it. Membership remains a work in progress, with the Laos Summit during the week a part of that journey.

The state of the South China Sea’s multiple disputes has also been taken as a measure of Asean’s competence. Any catastrophe resulting from the disputes would be of concern to Asean as it would be to anyone else.

However, the disputes are between individual sovereign nations as neighbours and involves less than half the Asean membership. Asean is quietly confident that they can be resolved or are resolvable with time, provided there is no ulterior motive or foreign agenda at play.

Asean understands that the region has managed challenges before and wants that to continue. Anything less will not be Asean, nor will the region be sovereign.

Bunn Nagara is director and senior fellow at the BRI Caucus for Asia-Pacific, and an honorary fellow at the Perak Academy. The views expressed here are solely his own.

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China's 'moment' at ASEAN Summit a wake-up call for US sincerity

Western media have appeared to function under a consistent principle – whenever international affairs are at play, they are framed as a stage for major power rivalry. Unsurprisingly, the just-concluded ASEAN Summit was once again interpreted through the lens of US-China competition. This time, however, what was revealed was not US' diplomatic advantage, but rather its increasingly visible diplomatic predicament.

Understanding BRICS

 

Western institutions like Goldman Sachs expect BRICS to dominate the world economy by 2050, but still cannot understand how it works despite its strengths.

FOUR countries, each with considerable growth promise, were exploring greater trade and investment prospects at the turn of the century.

They were already among the world’s top 10 countries by way of geographical spread, population size, and national economic strength in GDP, in both nominal and purchasing power parity (PPP) terms. They were also working well together.

Brazil, Russia, India, and China then came together in 2009, and Goldman Sachs nicknamed them by the acronym “BRIC”. South Africa joined the following year to make it “BRICS”.

Almost immediately, Western scepticism worked overtime. It ranged from how a grouping with no discernible identity could achieve anything, to how long such an association with no conceivable purpose could possibly last. The sceptics did not seem to notice that the five countries happened to form a quarter of the Group of 20 (G20). Serious observers had known that the G20 was steadily surpassing the Western-led Group of 7 (G7) countries in global significance.

The International Monetary Fund had initially identified the G7 as the world’s leading economies. Yet just the five BRICS countries had exceeded the G7 in terms of GDP in PPP – with the promise of more.

Clearly, BRICS represented a shift in the global economy’s tectonic

plates. A new planetary alignment in economic power was underway, but this could not be understood through old ways of thinking.

Within the typically narrow Western perspective, an alliance could hold only by targeting significant others outside the group – or had clear affinities among members in seeking to target others.

Evidently, BRICS did not fit this notion of an intergovernmental grouping to work. BRICS was not about targeting anyone, but about developing members’ potential for building a more equitable global order together.

Obviously, those intent on keeping the Global South permanently down will be alarmed by BRICS’ development. However, such neocolonial attitudes are now the ones fading out.

BRICS is about the Global South spreading its wings, in solidarity with transnational partners and megatrends moving in that direction.

To emerging regions in the developing world this is identity and purpose enough, even if it is a blur to former colonial powers.

Typically, many in the West cannot fathom how BRICS can

nd appeal to any “friendly” or nonaligned country. They assume that countries come together only as an “alliance”, which in turn must work to rival or oppose others in zero-sum fashion.

They tend to forget that BRICS began as a small community of emerging economies exploring greater trade and investment opportunities. Economic development is crucial to countries of the Global South because colonialism had robbed them of it.

Among the Global North’s misperceptions is that BRICS is a rival to the G7. That is a mistake in terms of BRICS’ identity and purpose.

Rivalry is another party’s definitive challenge to the point of rendering one redundant or irrelevant, and then usurping one’s purpose through displacement.

To that end, the G20 should be paired with the G7 and BRICS with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The G20 and G7 are competing entities much like BRICS and the OECD, not BRICS and the G7.

Each group has agency, yet only represents emerging or receding megatrends. Countering “unfavourable” megatrends is an enormous or impossible task that requires addressing their historic undercurrents, not the organisations themselves.

The fact that the G20 includes major BRICS countries shows that the G7 as its Western component, in ceding some influence, is facing the global shift towards multipolarity. This reality should be acknowledged and managed intelligently.

Most countries see no contradiction between joining BRICS and continuing healthy relationships with Western powers for mutual benefit. Of course, such relationships have to be based on equality and mutual respect between sovereign nations, not any kind of neocolonial or patron-client arrangement.

Indonesia reportedly considered joining BRICS, only to shelve the idea in prioritising OECD membership. Malaysia has applied to join BRICS, with an intention to join the OECD as well.

India as an important partner of the West is a leading member of BRICS. Vietnam is another Western partner considering BRICS membership.

US ally Thailand has applied for membership, while Laos and even its former “protectorate” master France have indicated interest in BRICS. Another Nato (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) member Turkey showed interest in 2018 and applied for membership this year.

Naturally, nonaligned Malaysia seeks better economic opportunities with BRICS. After joining the Us-led Indo-pacific Economic Framework and the Trans-pacific Partnership (now Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-pacific Partnership) once led by the US to exclude China, for Malaysia to snub BRICS would be to tilt against its main trading partner.

BRICS membership provides pluses that are cumulative with no trade-offs elsewhere. Even if only some Asean members join, it would benefit Asean as a whole through better global economic networking, without disadvantaging neighbouring countries that are not BRICS members.

BRICS offers expanded trade and investment opportunities in new, untapped markets and preferential trading arrangements among members. Greater use of local currencies also reduces transaction costs, minimises exchange rate volatility, and strengthens the value and status of local currencies.

Membership also means access to funds from BRICS’ New Development Bank, and exchange-traded funds invested in members’ emerging economies that are among the world’s fastest growing. The potential benefits explain BRICS’ popularity among dozens of countries worldwide regardless of culture, history or politics.

For Asean countries like Malaysia, membership of BRICS and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) as the world’s biggest trading bloc can mean powerful new synergies for accelerated and sustained economic growth. Every country has the responsibility to its citizens of making the most of every available development opportunity.

For the developing world, BRICS provides a means for fasttracking the route to fully developed status. For all countries in the Global South and North, it also provides coordinated efforts for fulfilling such global public goods as UN Sustainable Development Goals.

By BUNN NAGARA Bunn Nagara is director and Senior Fellow of the BRI Caucus for Asiapacific, and Honorary Fellow of the Perak Academy. The views expressed here are solely his own.

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Bigger thriller in Manila: Asean point man to deal with China

Point man: Asean has designated Manila its ‘leader’ in dealings with China, but can the moody Duterte, here shown bonding with Xi on a visit to Beijing in 2016, clinch a an agreement from China for the regional association? — AP

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NOW that the quartet of Asean-related summits is over for the year, so should the niggling criticisms. At least they should – more important matters are at hand.

Over the week Singapore hosted the 2nd RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership) Summit, the 13th East Asia Summit, the 21st Asean Plus Three Summit, and – not least – the 33rd Asean Summit.

These summits were held because it was time they were, and Singapore hosted them because it was its turn. But criticisms were not far behind.

US President Donald Trump was a no-show, and so was Chinese President Xi Jinping. Vice-President Mike Pence and Prime Minister Li Keqiang attended instead.

Trump was criticised for his absence, which allegedly “left the region wide open” for Xi’s China to make further inroads here. That complaint was limited only by Xi’s own absence.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was also criticised for not attending an “informal breakfast summit” between Asean and Australian leaders.

His said it was only an informal event, and it was over breakfast which he did not eat.

A casual observer may be forgiven for sensing that there must be more important developments than these scheduled rounds of handshakes and photo opportunities. There are.

One of these begins in two days: Xi’s state visit to the Philippines, following the scheduled 30th Apec Summit in Papua New Guinea.

Duterte had made three visits to China as President, inviting Xi to visit Manila each time. This will be Xi’s first state visit, coming upon the third invitation to him.

There will be handshakes and photo opportunities too, but the substance and symbolism now may be more than the recent multiple summits in Singapore and Papua New Guinea.

The Philippines has been vocal about rival claims to territory in the South China Sea. The previous The region is generally unsettled by China’s recent occupation and construction of islands, with Vietnam remaining most disturbed. Duterte’s critics have also blamed him for being soft on Beijing.

However, Xi’s visit is expected to be smooth with an emphasis on the positives. These include mutual interests deemed to be larger than interminable disputes over distant rocks and islets.

Last year Chinese Vice-Premier Wang Yang visited Manila for four days amid more audible protests over territory such as Benham Rise. Yet the visit proceeded unhindered.

This time it is President Xi himself, for a state visit of only two days, with no particular complaint against China outstanding. It will also be after one full year of China having become the Philippines’ main trading partner.

For both sides the focus will be quite intense on specific projects backed by Chinese assistance. Duterte left the merrymaking in Papua New Guinea early to return home to prepare for Xi’s arrival.

For China, it would demonstrate to the region how it can cooperate with even a country locked in dispute with it to mutual benefit. This gains added significance when it is the Philippines, historically a US ally.

For the Philippines, there is a host of projects and programmes on Duterte’s wish list requiring Chinese aid. They span his ambitious 9-trillion peso (RM717bil) “Build, Build, Build” infrastructure plan covering all three regions of the Philippines: Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

These come under the Six-Year Development Program (SYDP) signed last year with China as a framework for the Philippines’ “Golden Age of Infrastructure.” It is to be Duterte’s legacy for his country.

The 75 projects include a water pump and irrigation scheme, a dam, a north-south railway, a highway, bridges, a park and a rehabilitated power plant. Economic growth is projected to outpace debt.

Duterte is clear-minded enough to know that only China is able and willing to provide the assistance needed. No other country or combination of countries is in a position to do so.

There are also plans for more Chinese business investments, as well as a framework agreement for joint oil and gas explorations at sea. The latter are understood to cover some disputed areas, with China agreeing to only a 40% share of recoverable deposits.

Countries in dispute over territory and the reserves found therein tend to shy from joint exploration, as legally this may imply recognition of the other disputing party’s claim.

But since this condition applies equally to both parties, the Philippines may be confident that China would also be obliged to acknowledge the Philippine claim. Can there be a lesson here for other Asean countries with claims to the South China Sea?

To ensure the success of Xi’s visit, there had been a positive build-up of Philippines-China relations in recent months. Xi’s state visit in turn is envisaged to lead to even better bilateral relations.

Last August, joint simulated naval exercises were held in Singapore among Asean countries and China without US participation. Manila defended that decision by saying that the “tabletop” drill was meant only for neighbouring countries in the region.

Now as Xi prepares for his visit, the US Pacific Fleet is reportedly readying a series of naval operations as a “show of force” in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straits. In response to China’s stated concern, the Philippines said it will have no part in those operations.Xi’s visit is important not just for the Philippines but also Asean, which had designated Manila the “point man” in dealings with China. Can Duterte clinch an agreement from China for Asean?

Manila had said that a legally binding Code of Conduct (CoC) in the South China Sea was on the agenda, but Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said it may take another three years.

If China really wants to prove its goodwill in Manila, Xi could suggest it may happen considerably sooner.

The last Chinese President to make a state visit to the Philippines was Hu Jintao in 2005. That occasion also marked the 30th anniversary of bilateral relations, which is as auspicious a time as any.

This Tuesday’s visit by Xi will be the first Chinese state visit in 13 years. That is an auspicious number in Chinese, but not so in Western culture.

Will it be auspicious for the Philippines, the only Christian-majority country in the region once colonised by Spain and then the US? Duterte’s original style of leadership may yet make the difference.

By Behind The Headlines Bunn Nagara

Bunn Nagara is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia.

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First among equals: Putin and Xi had an official meeting before the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Qingdao. Sloppy US policies have helped to build a growing China-Russia alliance for a full decade now.- AFP

THE week that was ended with a significant non-Western event often ignored or misunderstood by the West: the latest Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit.

The 18th annual SCO summit in the Chinese port city of Qingdao this weekend is only the fourth held in China. Beijing is relaxed about its role in a growing organisation of eight member countries, six Dialogue Partners and four observer nations – a confidence that suggests considerable clout.

China and Russia are the two hulking members of a group that boasts formal parity, being the conspicuous “firsts among equals.” And as two consecutive US administrations unwittingly drive these giants closer than ever before strategically, Western attention is led astray.

Western reports track President Putin’s travel to Qingdao and the diplomatic niceties exchanged there. At the same time, Western commentators are tempted to dismiss the summit as yet another futile talkfest.

Both approaches are wrong or misplaced. While Xi-Putin exchanges may not be the highlight of this year’s SCO summit, neither are they insignificant.

Sloppy US policies helped to build a growing China-Russia alliance for a full decade now. This is evident enough from the meeting rooms of the UN Security Council to the battlefields of Syria to the South China Sea and the Baltics.

The latest SCO summit reaffirms the trend but adds only marginally to it by way of atmospherics. There are more important developments visible at, if not represented by, the Qingdao summit.

It is the first SCO summit at which both India and Pakistan arrive as full members.

Beginning as the Shanghai Five in the mid-1990s, the SCO has grown steadily and now incorporates three giants – China, Russia and India – in the great Eurasian land mass where both the US and the EU have scant inputs.

With Pakistan coming in at the same time as India as an equal partner, the SCO should be free from any sub-regional turbulence within South Asia.

Turkey is also an SCO Dialogue Partner whose interest in full membership is not without broader implications for the West.

Turkey has considerable military strength and is also a member of Nato, hosting its Allied Land Command and a US air base in Izmir. However, Ankara’s years-long effort to join the EU has been snubbed by Brussels.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has famously mulled over choosing between the EU and the SCO, reportedly preferring the latter. How would the West find a Nato member joining a non-Western group led by Russia and China?

Deep-seated discomfort would be a mild way to put a reaction in Brussels and Washington. To US policymakers, Turkey is a strategic country because of its location as well as its status as a prominent Muslim country.

Both China and Russia have sounded positive about Turkey’s prospective membership of the SCO. Nonetheless, SCO members share an understanding of sorts that Turkey may have to forego its Nato membership before SCO membership can be entertained.

However, Beijing and Moscow may be less concerned than Washington and Brussels about Turkey’s SCO membership with its Nato credentials intact. That immediately makes Turkey more comfortable to be in SCO company.

Turkey has already received what amounts to special treatment within the SCO that no other Dialogue Partner has enjoyed. Last year it was elected as Chair of the SCO’s Energy Club, a position previously enjoyed only by full members.

Erdogan has called the SCO “more powerful” than the EU, particularly in a time of Brexit. Bahrain and Qatar seek full SCO membership; Iraq, Israel, Maldives, Ukraine and Vietnam want to be Dialogue Partners; and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Egypt, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Syria want Observer status.

Iran already has SCO Observer status and had applied for full membership in 2008. Following the easing of UN sanctions on Tehran, China declared its support for Iran’s membership bid in 2016.

The recent US pullout from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“Iran nuclear deal”) has further prodded Tehran to “look East.” These days that means China and a China-led SCO.

Iran already trades heavily with China with myriad deals in multiple sectors. Mutual interests abound, far exceeding the basic relationship of oil and gas sales to China.

As Europe treads carefully, mindful of possible new sanctions on Iran following the US cop out, cash-rich Chinese firms take up the slack. US policy is also pushing Iran, among others, closer to China.

In preparing for Prime Minister Modi’s arrival in Qingdao on Friday, Indian Ambassador Gautam Bambawale said both countries were determined to work in close partnership and would never be split apart.

This echoed two main points already shared by Indian and Chinese leaders – that their countries are partners in development and progress, and what they have in common are greater than their differences.

All of this seems set to undo the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) that groups the US with Japan, Australia and India, all boasting a democratic system in common in a joint strategic encirclement of China. But India’s relations with China have been on the upswing for half a year now.

The day before Modi arrived in Qingdao, a Quad meeting in Singapore closed on Friday with India expressing differences with the other members. Its Ambassador to Russia Pankaj Saran said the Quad was not the same as its hopes for an inclusive “Indo-Pacific region” (IPR) that did not target any country.

He added that India wanted closer ties with Russia as well in an IPR. Just a fortnight before, Russia’s recent Ambassador to the US Sergei Kislyak said President Trump also wanted closer ties with Russia.

That was only a small part of the roller-coaster ride of international diplomacy in the first half of 2018.

In January Trump condemned the Taliban for a spate of attacks in Afghanistan, vowing that all talks with them were off. Until then, top US diplomats were carefully planning negotiations with the Taliban.

In March, US officials blasted Russia for allegedly arming the Taliban, which Moscow denied. The following month Nato voiced support for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s efforts to talk with the Taliban to “save the country.”

Meanwhile Trump’s ramparts of trade barriers in the direction of a trade war would decimate allies from East Asia to Europe. French President Emmanuel Macron expressed a European position in reaching out to China on climate and security issues.

By March the EU had dug in, preparing for the worst of US trade barriers while vowing retaliation. The WTO also warned Washington that it was veering towards a trade war with tariffs on steel and aluminium.

In April, China’s new Defence Minister Gen. Wei Fenghe arrived in Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu. Wei rubbed it in for Washington, publicly announcing that his visit was to show the US the high level of strategic cooperation between China and Russia.

Two days later the Foreign Ministers of China and Russia expressed similar sentiments. They championed negotiations and sticking to pledges while weighing in against the unilateralism of a unipolar power.

Where China has the SCO, Russia has the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

If any discomfort is felt in Washington, it is from acting as a unipolar power in an increasingly multipolar world.

Source: Behind the headlines by Bunn Nagara is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia.



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The AIIB groundswell; Asian development to the fore

Washington's Lobbying Efforts Against China's 'World Bank' Fail As Italy, France Welcomed Aboard. The cheese really does stand alone. Every single U.S. ally with the exception of Japan have all hopped on board the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or AIIB. Italy and France were approved on Thursday to become founding members, bringing the total membership base to 33 from the original 21.

The AIIB groundswell

Just in time for the deadline, an impressive coalition of countries have signed on for the newest development bank on the block

THE deadline of March 31 has passed, and 52 countries are now on the list of would-be founders of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

The China-led bank was launched in October last year at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, a year after Chinese President Xi Jinping proposed a bank to offer funds for development projects during his official visit to Indonesia.

The initiative would promote regional inter-connectivity and economic integration, he said when delivering a speech at the Indonesian Parliament.

In the past few days leading up to the deadline, news of more countries hurrying to join the AIIB made headlines, especially when a few of them announced the decision at the recently concluded Boao Forum in Hainan province, which Xi officiated.

The world was watching closely to see if the United States and Japan would sign up as founding members just before the deadline, but both have decided to opt out of the bank that is seen as a rival to the Western-dominated World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

Back in October last year, the bank had confirmation from 21 countries to participate as founding members – Malaysia was one of them – all of which are in the Asian continent.

The tipping point came when the United Kingdom announced its decision to join the AIIB in the middle of March, to the surprise of many.

More countries followed suit right after that, including France, Italy, Germany and Switzerland.

Martin Jacques, a senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Britain’s Cambridge University, said the rise and growing awareness of the Chinese possibility in the context of a multilateral initiative pressed Britain to act the way it did, making AIIB not just an Asian institution but a global one.

“I think this is an extraordinary historical moment,” he said in a panel discussion during the Boao Forum.

“The new institutions (AIIB and the New Development Bank operated by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) do not necessarily conflict with the Bretton Woods institutions. They are very different.

“The developing countries now account for nearly 60% of global Gross Domestic Product and they represent 85% of the world population.

“The new institutions, unlike the Bretton Woods institutions, are being defined as relevant to the needs of this 85% of world population, most of whom are concentrated in this continent.”

Countries which have missed the March 31 deadline can still join as ordinary members, while those that have already submitted their application will find out if they are on the final list of founding members by April 15.

With an initial capital of US$50bil (RM184bil), AIIB is scheduled to be officially established at the end of the year, after the rules are finalised and signed in mid-2015.

New Zealand’s former Prime Minister Jenny Shipley said there is a need to define “infrastructure” to determine the types of projects that are qualified to obtain funding from the AIIB.

“If I could be provocative – if you were to put a diverse group of qualified women and men together and ask them the question, you’ll get a broader definition than if you just ask the question of classical male concept of buildings,” she said.

“We need to stand in the shoes of the people whose lives will be unleashed if we get this right. Just bringing in the classical morals of the same thing would not give us the breakthrough.”

Josette Sheeran, the president and Chief Executive Officer of the Asia Society, chipped in on this, citing Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agenda of building more toilets as an example.

“The reason young girls don’t go to school in India is that there is no toilet. That’s the kind of infrastructure that would really capture the mind of humanity and transform hope in the world,” she said.

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was more concerned about the governance of the new banks, placing emphasis on professionalism, transparency and quality leadership.

“The people hired for AIIB must be professionals who know what infrastructure financing is all about,” he said.

“The quality of people will determine the ability of these banks to analyse risks to give money and to make credible loans which are payable back.”

Transparency, in the opinion of Deloitte global chairman Steve Almond, is also key to attract the private sector to come onboard.

“The regional or sub-regional projects are arguably the ones that bring the greatest impact to economic development. But because they go across the borders, they are also harder to manage and least likely to attract private sector capital,” he said.

“We need the mechanism to provide confidence to the private sector, and transparency governance is one of the compelling reasons to encourage them to come and join the projects.”

And what is the magic that would make good governance work?

Li Ruogum, former chairman and president of Export-Import Bank of China, believes in understanding.

“This newly established institution cannot just clone the older one, as we are working in a very different environment.

“We have to accumulate our experiences and need to have a mind of innovation. All should come together and understand each other, and try to achieve good governance.”

Check-in-China by Tho Xin Yi

 
Asian development to the fore

Chinese President Xi Jinping. - AFP  
Hungry for development: In 2013, President Xi Jinping proposed a new development bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. One year later, 22 Asian countries had signed up, including 10 Asean countries - Blooberg

Asia’s need for better infrastructure and more development is too important to be held to ransom by outdated big power politics and petty posturing.

FOR many observers, the US “pivot” (later renamed “rebalancing”) to the Asia-Pacific was classic Obama: the rhetorical flourish was more dramatic than the policy substance.

In the second half of its first term, the Obama administration sought to assign two-thirds of its military assets to the Asia-Pacific theatre, up from the standard half from the even split between the Pacific and the Atlantic.

By the middle of its second term, officials were struggling to maintain a semblance of a policy largely left to coast under its steadily diminishing momentum. US foreign policy, and by extension US defence policy, appeared distracted by other concerns.

The State Department and the Pentagon seemed consumed at once by the Syrian debacle, Iraq’s instability, rising terrorism everywhere, civil war in Ukraine, Europe’s problems with Russia, Iran’s nuclear programme and an uppity Israel.

Then there were the ever-present ­budgetary constraints. Deploying another 16% of military assets to the Asia-Pacific, from half to two-thirds, seemed hardly noticeable or achievable.

Meanwhile, officials were anxious to insist that the rebalancing had nothing to do with the rise of China and its growing assertiveness in the region. It was, they said, part of efforts to preserve US strategic interests.

Whatever the choice of words, and however implicit China may be as motivation, rebalancing was fast becoming history. By March last year, a Pentagon official admitted it was going nowhere.

However, the Obama administration’s gift of verbalising policy intent made US intentions clear enough.

President Obama had famously said the US should be writing trade rules in the Asia-Pacific rather than let China do it.

Thus, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact with controversial demands that swiftly became synonymous with US trade preferences. But China had not been idle either.

In 2013, President Xi Jinping proposed a new development bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). One year later, 22 Asian countries had signed up, including all 10 Asean countries.

In Asia, the world’s most promising continent for rapid economic growth, infrastructure needs for development are peaking. The IMF, World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) can serve only a fraction of its needs: between 2010 and 2020 alone, some RM30tril is needed.

China set a deadline of March 31 this year for countries around the world to sign up as Prospective Founding Members (PFMs) before operations begin later in 2015. China would provide the biggest contribution to the authorised capital of US$100bil (RM363.49bil) and initial subscribed capital of US$50bil (RM181.75bil).

The US immediately saw this as a game-changer challenge to its dominance in global lending. For decades, it has controlled the World Bank, and through its European allies, the IMF and through its ally Japan, the ADB.

These institutions have been known to set tough conditions on debtor countries that may not serve domestic aspirations or national interests. A cash-rich China also felt it remained under-represented in these institutions even after becoming a leading global economy.

Washington had hoped, even expected, that its allies and friends would stay away from the AIIB as a rival institution. But like its pivot or rebalancing strategy, that hope steadily faded.

In Europe, Britain as the closest US ally was the first to sign up to the AIIB early last month. Soon, other major European economies like France, Germany and Italy followed, as did all the Scandinavian countries.

Washington then quietly pressured Japan, South Korea and Australia to stay away. But Seoul and Canberra signed up anyway. By then, the US had started to soften its stand, denying that it had ever pressured any country to stay away. It was only unsure if the AIIB would adhere to best practices in international lending.

Then, other US allies like Taiwan and Israel also signed up. The US was becoming increasingly isolated, with only Japan as the other major economy for company.

But not for long, perhaps. Last Monday, Japan’s ambassador to China, Masato Kitera, said in a Financial Times (FT) interview that Japan would join the AIIB as well, probably around June.

That came as a bombshell to the conservative Japanese government. It would seem too much of a betrayal of yet another US ally, the final one being the “unkindest cut of all”.

The next day, on the deadline for countries to sign up as PFMs for the AIIB, Tokyo denied that Ambassador Kitera ever said such a thing. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Japan had no imme­diate plans to join the AIIB.

Besides being a US ally, Japan was also wary of the prospect of the AIIB undercutting the ADB.

Whatever the actual chances of Japan joining the AIIB, Tokyo would want to underplay it as much as possible.

Like the US, Japan said it was reluctant to sign up because of uncertainty over the AIIB’s standards. But countries such as Britain and Singapore that have joined said the best way to ensure high standards was to get on board and be part of the decision-making process.

To be part of that process, it was necessary to sign up early before the big decisions were made. The terms and conditions of lending and borrowing have still to be firmed up as dozens of countries including giants like India and Russia are already in.

The FT report also revealed that Japanese business leaders were pressuring their government to join the AIIB. Mitsubishi bosses, for example, had expressed confidence in Jin Liqun, a former senior ADB official who will head the AIIB.

On the deadline last Tuesday, China announced that 30 countries had been admitted as PFMs. More than a dozen others were in the queue.

Then a flood of criticisms and denuncia­tions of the stubborn US position came, mostly from within the US itself. Analysts and commentators, including in Forbes and The Economist, said the US administration had miscalculated badly in staying out, only damaging US long-term interests in East Asia and the Pacific.

Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright also condemned the US position, lamenting the way Washington had scored another own goal by rebuffing the AIIB. The US had placed itself behind the curve in changes in the Asia-Pacific rather than stay at the leading edge.

If and when Japan finally signs up, the US may have to be resigned to becoming a part of the AIIB. But as a latecomer, it may be limited to playing only a bit part such as an observer rather than sit at the main table.

China has long regretted the US fixation with what it calls a Cold War “them against us” bipolar mentality that frustrates progress on many fronts. For the countries of Asia hungry for more development, progress must not be held hostage to big power rivalry.

Ultimately, any rivalry between the US and China today is not over political ideology but economic ideology: the Washington Consensus of free trade rhetoric where the state and private industry are at odds with each other versus the emerging Beijing Consensus of close public-private partnerships that have worked so well for so much of Asia already.

US opposition to a proven formula for Asia is most unlikely to win friends and supporters anywhere, least of all in Asia.

By Bunn Nagara Behind the headlines

> Bunn Nagara is a Senior Fellow at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia.

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