Interview: Realization of ASEAN community to be another historic milestone, says Cambodian scholar

As the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is set to become a community on Dec. 31, 2015, the date will be another historic milestone in the ongoing long-term community-building process in ASEAN, said a well-respected Cambodian scholar.

"Dec. 31, 2015 will not actually signify the 'birth' or the 'emergence' and certainly not 'the completion' of ASEAN Community," Pou Sothirak, executive director of the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace, told Xinhua in an interview on Friday.

"ASEAN community building must continue to transform gradually through a step-by-step process and overcome ongoing challenges and shortfalls beyond 2015 and must respond appropriately to the need of the peoples, the countries, and the region of Southeast Asia as a whole," he said.

ASEAN must deliver concrete results which their respective governments have promised the people with more convincing commitment to improve the well-being of the people, reduce poverty and inequality, address the development divide and raise livelihood of the rural and marginalized people to achieve a prosperous and cohesive society, he said.

"Each country of ASEAN must take bolder actions to further promote equitable and inclusive development, manage national resources in appropriate ways, remain firmly committed to tackling non-traditional security, promptly invest in human resource development, and fully embrace the notion of an open and just society," said the expert.

He added that all ASAEN member countries must work together to resolutely maintain its liberal agenda by aspiring to promote common regional interests, strengthening more rule-based institutions, and bolstering its relevance in the emerging context of the power shifting dynamic of the region and the world.

Sothirak said one of the main barriers to the upcoming ASEAN community is how to narrow social disparities and economic development gaps between the 10 countries of ASEAN, especially between the richer ASEAN-6 (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand) and the less developed members of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV).

Although the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI) are supposed to help member states, especially the CLMV countries, to reap the benefits of full integration and thereby narrowing the development gap, the lack of substantial progress for full integration remain a serious challenge to the community building process beyond 2015.

There are still staggering development gaps between the rich ASEAN-6 and lesser developed CLMV in numerous areas. Such areas comprise poverty and inequality, as well as poor access to public services, such as health care and sanitation, disparity in the income gap due to weak economies and a lack of inclusive growth.

Other disparities include a deficiency in human resource development, as can be seen in lower labor participation rates and inferior university rankings, as well as insufficient infrastructure development, like land, air, and maritime transport as well as energy related projects.

Indeed, poorer information and communication technology (ICT) in the CLMV than in the ASEAN-6 is another gap that needs to be bridged, added to this the disparity in trade and development gap between the two groups and a lack of robust CLMV sub-regional schemes to attract wider foreign direct investment coupled with ineffective trade liberalization, also remain as prominent areas of developmental focus, he said.

"Unless these challenges are addressed satisfactory, widespread development gaps will continue to pose serious obstacles to the ASEAN Community beyond 2015," Sothirak said.

"The CLMV countries must find better ways to meet specific deadlines of the AEC implementation, and, ASEAN as a whole must ensure that the ASEAN Master Plan on Connectivity as spelled out in the AEC Blueprint and all relevant projects in the IAI are adequately realized by overcoming a combination of financial shortfalls, poor governance, corruption, and the inability of national governments to manage international and interdepartmental coordination," he added.

The upcoming ASEAN community is comprised of three pillars, namely the ASEAN Political-Security Community, ASEAN Economic Community and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community.

Sothirak said the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) has huge potential as a single economic bloc and when it comes to fruition, the AEC will have an economy worth 2.5 trillion U.S. dollars with a population of more than 620 million and will lift the game from the current ASEAN Free Trade Area to the creation of a single market and production base, where goods, services and skilled labor can move freely, accompanied by freer movement of capital.

"Despite visible progress on reducing tariffs for goods, improving trade facilitation and enhancing trade rules, the launch of the AEC by 2015 will face difficult challenges due to structural weaknesses within ASEAN that include ineffectual institutions, limited resources and a poor track record of implementation," he said.

"ASEAN needs to push much harder and address these shortfalls if it is to launch the AEC credibly in less than two months."

He said the ASEAN Community will provide greater opportunity for Cambodia in socio-economic development; however, to reap the potential benefits of ASEAN Community process, Cambodia needs to pay attention to enhancing the rule of law, ensuring an independent judiciary, respecting the fundamental principle of human rights and treating all investments equally.

"Cambodia should do more to ensure good governance, reduce corruption and alleviate poverty to uplift the livelihoods of the people," he said.

Asked if the China-proposed "One Belt and One Road" initiative will contribute to the development of the ASEAN Community, the expert said the "One Belt, One Road" is considered as a landmark initiative to cover large infrastructure projects through the Silk Road Economic Belt and to spur trade ties through the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.

"This new Chinese initiative is expected to firmly support ASEAN countries in promoting sustainable economic growth," he said.

He recalled that Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said in August during the China-ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Kuala Lumpur that China is willing to align its "One Belt, One Road" initiative with ASEAN countries' respective development strategies and the construction blueprint of ASEAN Community in order to provide new impetus and create new prospects for China-ASEAN cooperation and growth

"This is a welcome sign for ASEAN to capitalize on the new Chinese initiative," Sothirak said, adding that, "The initiative will contribute positively toward the enhancement of trade, investment, tourism and people-to-people exchange thereby forging China-ASEAN relations that are even closer to one another."

He said the "One Belt, One Road" initiative strikingly resembles the ASEAN Master Plan for Connectivity (AMPC), as both initiatives encompass transport connectivity to scale up their economic exchange, social and cultural exchanges through a system of roads and railway links as well as a system of ports.

He said the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the Silk Road Fund, as well as Chinese development aid will greatly contribute to the development of infrastructure projects such as ports, terminals and high-speed trains in ASEAN countries. Endit