Category: ASEAN

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ASEAN

[1354] Of a first world oasis in a third world region

Did you miss that interview IHT had with Lee Kuan Yew?

IHT: This system, machinery of government here in Singapore is looked on as a model all over the world. Are you confident that it can survive indefinitely or does it face problems that some companies face? For example, when they try to expand, they start to lose their edge. They start to lose their competitiveness.

Lee Kuan Yew: Well, I cannot say that we will not lose it. If we lose it, then we’re done in. We go back to where we started, right?

We knew that if we were just like our neighbors, we would die. Because we’ve got nothing to offer against what they have to offer. So we had to produce something which is different and better than what they have. It’s incorrupt. It’s efficient. It’s meritocratic. It works.

The system works regardless of your race, language or religion because otherwise we’d have divisions. We are pragmatists. We don’t stick to any ideology. Does it work? Let’s try it and if it does work, fine, let’s continue it. If it doesn’t work, toss it out, try another one. We are not enamored with any ideology.

Let the historians and the Ph.D. students work out their doctrines. I’m not interested in theories per se.

IHT: But a lot of these reflect your personality – the force of your personality.

Lee Kuan Yew: No, no. A lot of it is the result of the problems we face and a team of us – I wasn’t a loner. I had some very powerful minds working with me. And we sat down and thought through our options. Take this matter of getting MNCs [multinational corporations] to come here when the developing world expert economists said, “No, MNCs are exploiters.”

I went to America. This was a happenstance . . . What were the Americans doing? They were exporting their manufacturing capabilities . . . That’s what I wanted. That’s how it started.

I said O.K., let’s make this a first world oasis in a third world region. So not only will they come here to set up plants and manufacture, they will also come here and from here explore the region.

What do we need to attract them? First class infrastructure. Where do we get it from? We had the savings from our Central Provident Fund. We had some loans from the World Bank.

We built up the infrastructure. The difficult part was getting the people to change their habits so that they behaved more like first world citizens, not like third world citizens spitting and littering all over the place.

That was the difficult part. So, we had campaigns to do this, campaigns to do that. We said, “Look, if you don’t do this, you won’t get the jobs. You must make this place like the countries they came from. Then, they are comfortable. Then they’ll do business here. Then, you’ll have a job. Then, you’ll have homes, schools, hospitals, etc.” That’s a long process. [Excerpts from an interview with Lee Kuan Yew. International Herald Tribune. August 29 2007]

I would love to hear what the touchy nationalists would have to say.

As for me, the hot hot hot aftertaste still lingers and so, my brain is not working.

Categories
ASEAN

[1326] Of 40 years of ASEAN

Public domain.

Hail the coffee shop.

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ASEAN

[1310] Of a new secretary-general with a charter

Surin Pitsuwan will be the new secretary-general of ASEAN.

The foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations have endorsed former Thai foreign minister, Surin Pitsuwan, as the new ASEAN secretary general.

Mr Surin will succeed Singapore’s Ong Keng Yong who will end his five-year term at the end of this year.

He will be the first ASEAN secretary general to serve under the ASEAN charter, a legal instrument proposed to be ready in November and aiming to transform ASEAN into a rules-based association. [ASEAN endorses new secretary general. Radio Australia. July 31 2007.

While I am pro-ASEAN, perhaps especially so after witnessing the frustrating Doha Round, I am unsure how the new secretary-general would affect me as an ASEAN citizen.

This is even more so when I read that the Singaporean Foreign Minister, George Yeo said the ASEAN Charter is expected to be signed later during the ASEAN Summit planned in November this year in Singapore.

SINGAPORE : Foreign Minister George Yeo has said he is optimistic that the final ASEAN Charter will be signed when the group meets in Singapore later this year. [ASEAN Charter likely to be signed at Singapore meeting: George Yeo. S. Ramesh. Channel NewsAsia. July 31]

When the idea of a charter for ASEAN was mooted, I was expecting what many Europeans had gone through: referenda. Alas, far from it, ASEAN processes are so far detached from the governed.

If ASEAN desperately wants to be relevant to its people, if ASEAN member states want to create a truly organic ASEAN identity, participation of its citizens in ASEAN is essential. When the citizens themselves are disfranchised from something as important as the formulation of a constitution, it is hard to see how the regional grouping would be relevant to its citizens.

I do not think too many of us, the citizens of ASEAN, think of ourselves as citizens of ASEAN. The best way for ASEAN to change that is to include its citizens into its processes. Referenda to the people of ASEAN to approve the Charter is a golden opportunity to set alight the common people interest in ASEAN.

ASEAN must stop pretending that those bureaucrats that are deliberating on matters relating to the Charter are representing the citizens of ASEAN. After all, Southeast Asia is a region with little real democratic tradition.

The ASEAN Charter must source its legitimacy only through the citizens of ASEAN, not from the bureaucrats. Unless that is done, ASEAN risks irrelevancy at home while it develops a reputation of a coffee shop internationally. The ASEAN Charter should be a milestone for a new democratic and modern Southeast Asia, not a projection of an old autocratic or paternalistic region instead.

Categories
ASEAN Economics

[1273] Of a tit-for-tat with a happy ending

In game theory, tit-for-tat is one of the most common strategies utilized with cold effectiveness. Recently within the realm of ASEAN, Thailand played such tactics on Malaysia due to the latter’s protectionist automotive policy. Accusing that thee Malaysian approved permit system acts as a non-tariff barrier, Thailand refused to grant ASEAN Free Trade Agreement tariff on Malaysian vehicles. Malaysia later relented, probably realizing that a better outcome could be reached if the two cooperated with each other to lower down trade barrier. Defection is a sad strategy, no matter how efficient it is.

Thanks to such sensibility, Thailand has agreed to lower down the barrier its imposed on Malaysian automotive goods:

The Thai Cabinet agreed on Tuesday to slash the country’s import tariff on Malaysian cars in line with the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), an assistant government spokesman said Tuesday.

The move came after Malaysia had abolished its own trade restrictions protecting its automotive sector, Mr. Chotechai Suwannaporn said.

The reciprocal moves are recognised both as gestures of goodwill within ASEAN, but also as tangible steps on the part of both countries to work towards an integrated regional trade area.

The former Thaksin administration delayed implementing tariff cuts for Malaysian cars, arguing that the neighbouring country had been implementing trade measures that were the main obstacle keeping Thai-built cars from penetrating its market. [Thailand to cut tariff on Malaysian Cars. Bangkok Post. June 27 2007]

Ah. A tit-for-tat with a happy ending. Hip hip hooray. More free trade please and let us tore down the wall of protectionism!

Categories
ASEAN Environment

[1145] Of haze in Thailand; bad news for Malaysia

Is there hope for us not to go though the hazy experience we had gone through in the previous years?

I have strong feeling that the answer is unfortunately no. Even if Indonesia rectified the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution, chances are, it would change nothing.

For last few weeks have seen northern Thailand as well as Myanmar and Laos engulfed in haze with level comparable to what had occurred in Southeast Asia last year. It is so bad that emergency has been declared:

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (Reuters) — Thick smoke from forest fires and slash-and-burn farming has spread over northern Thailand in the worst haze in 14 years, disrupting airline flights and irritating eyes and lungs, officials said on Monday.

The smoke from fires in Thailand and neighboring Laos and Myanmar slashed visibility in scores of towns and villages, including the major tourism hub of Chiang Mai. [Thailand haze ‘worst in 14 years’. Reuters via CNN. March 14 2007]

Meanwhile, more than two thousand kilometers south:

The Republic experienced a slightly hazy start to the week, with the overall PSI just falling out of the “good” range.

At 7pm yesterday, the PSI reading went into the “moderate” range for a reading of 52 — the highest level in March. [Singapore not spared from Thailand’s worst haze in 14 years. Today via Channel News Asia. March 20 2007]

I checked the Air Pollution Index at the Malaysian Department of the Environment and found out that for March, the readings for Kuala Lumpur having been hovering between 40 and 60. It seems, a typical day unaffected by haze would read in between 20 and 40.

The haze in Thailand is caused by open burning. Farmers in Myanmar look to clear out their land through the easiest method and that method is open burning; same story, different location.

Some however have blamed it on El Niño:

The average dust particles smaller than 10 microns around Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second-biggest city, are now around 240 micrograms per cubic meter of air, double the 120 micrograms standard, Kasem said.

He blamed the drought on the El Nino weather phenomenon hitting Thailand and neighboring Myanmar and Laos. [Thailand May Declare Emergency in Haze-Hit Northern Provinces. Bloomberg. March 13 2007]

Talking about El Niño, it seems that its effects on Malaysia has been rather mild. Instead of having a hot dry season, it is typical for rain to fall on almost daily basis. Sometimes, it rains so heavily that it floods.

Now, here is the killer: Thailand, Myanmar and Laos are parties to the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution. If Thailand, Myanmar and Laos are parties to the agreement and the parties are doing nothing to fight the haze, I starting to doubt having Indonesia as a party would improve the likelihood of Malaysia seeing a haze-free 2007; I am rethinking the need to encourage Indonesia to ratify the agreement as well.