SPEECH BY MR SRAJARATNAM,MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
AT THE,OPENINGSESSIONOF THE TENTHASEANMINISTERIAL MEETING Acc.No NARC
HELD AT THE SHANGRI-LAHOTEL ON WEDNESDAY,
6TH JULY, ‘77
:
I do not propose in this review to touch on economic
aspects of ASEAN. The Economic Ministers from ASEAN have
already deliberated
on this and submitted their recommendations
for consideration
by ASEANHeads of State and Government next
month
What I propose to do instead is to touch on some of the
broader aspects of ASEANwhich could have impact, both favour
able unfavourable,
on regional economic co-operation.
As
this also happens to be the 10th year of ASEANand as I appear
to be one of the two durable founder members of the organisation, this is perhaps an appropriate
occasion to anticipate
some of the problems the next ten years could bring,
I think
that I can view the next ten years more objectively
than I can
the decade we have left behind because, durable though I think
I am, it is less than probable that I would be presiding at the
20th anniversary of ASEAN, unless of course my colleague,
Secretary Romulo, can let me into the secret of eternal youth
But what I and, I am sure, you maycolleagues,
with the responsibility
of directing
ASEAN's
dedicated to is to make certain that not only
achieved the past 10 years is not lost to us
20th ASEANMinisterial
meeting would have as
entrusted
affairs,
are
all that has been
but also that the
its backdrop a
truly ASEANco mmunity - thriving,
united and accepted by others
as a major factor in world economics and politics.
This must be so because the alternative
is gradual
reversion of the five member states into separate communities
It is in the nature of
each going its own and different ways.
2
a complex organisation
like curs to either go forward or
regress.
There is no such thing as the status quo, for status
quo in a time of rapid changes means isolation
and alienation
from the world of realities.
The world of 1967, when ASEANwas launched, was a world
vastly different
from what confronts us today and from what we
will encounter the next ten years.
The assumptions and
certainties
of 1967 arc no longer valid.
The two major themes that obsessed us in ASEANsince
the post-war years were anti-colonialism
and the Cold War
between the Communist bloc, headed by the Soviet Union and the
non-Communist bloc headed by the United States.
The anti-colonial
issues have for the most part become
irrelevant
because very little
of the old empires remain. But
the triumph of nationalism has resulted in new kinds of threats
and conflicts - confrontation
within and between the new states.
The sources for this confrontation are
varied - disputes over
frontiers,
a rash of contending subnationalisms within the new
states on the basis of race, language or religion and even
proclations
of a divine mission by One developing state to
liberate other developing sta tes outside and far away from a
country
borders,
This unhappy trend was highlighted
in the meeting Of
the Organisation of African Unity now going on in Gabon. The
political,
ideological
and ethnic differences,
fuelled by
territorial
and economic quarrels and by the controlled
injection
of arms by outside powers suggest strongly that the
era of European wars has ended and that great power rivalries
may now be fought out in the countries of the Third World by
Today this battle
exploiting
their steadily growing conflicts.
ground is in Africa and the Middle East and it could shift to
our region should we provide the opportunities.
Equally the contest between the great powers has
It is no longer couched in the simple
changed
character.
language of the old Cold War - between Communism on the one
There are too many rivalries
side and Capitalism on the other.
and conflicts
within Communist states for the Old Cold War
language to
. . ../3
language to
Capitlism
that
it
be an effective
itself
means of mobilising
has incorporated
has become inadequate
allies.
so many'features
as rallying
points
Equally
of socialism
for the old
cold war objectives.
I think today
friends and allies not
ideological
affinities
The Soviet Union might
to bury capitalism but
serious rival -be it
And this
though dedicated
and in the future great powers will seek
on the basis of increasingly
irrelevant
but on the basis of national interests.
still
proclaim that its ultimate goal is
what is really sought is the buria1 of a
capitalist
America. or Communist China.
goes for America too.
The Carter administration
to non-Communism is interested
not in liberating
countries which lacking internal
strength have or will go
communist but in countering any rival which seeks to exclude
American influence in any part of the world.
This was reflected
clearly in the U.S. Secretary of State's recent speech on
America's role in Asia. It was a lengthy address but not once
did ho refer to Communismor the Free World. He referred
instead to the People's Republic
Korea but not to Communism.
of China and Vietnam and North
This is the first
time, I think, that a U.S. Secretary
of State has made a speech when the unmentionable has gone
unmentioned.
As I read it, the message is that the new
Administration
is not concerned with whether a country is
Communist or not but whether it is a friend or foe of America.
It may not be happy to see countries turn to Communismbut if
it has to it will seek peaceful CO-existence with such states.
These then are some of the fundamental ways in which
the international
climate has changed since ASEANwas launched
10 years ago and which our organisation
must take note of as
We chart our course for the years ahead. As my Prime Minister
said to you in his address last night America will seek friends
and allies who are assets and not liabilities
to be shied away
from. The ASEANcountries,
like the United States, Western
but
we cannot,
Europe and many others in Asia, are non-Communist
as we possibly could in 1967, expect rescue brigades to come to
our aid should our non-Communist status be threatened from
without and particularly
from within.
The non-Communist powers
will go no further than helping us to help ourselves.
So, as
my Prime Minister said, contribution
to the stability
and
security of this part of the world must come primarily
from us.
Regionally the difference
between the South-East Asia
of 1967 and 1977 is that We now have three Communist states as
our neighbours.
One positive
consequence of this is that our
region has ceased to be the arena of a protracted and
destructive
War.
l
l
--
The problem, therefore,
before us is how a non-Communist
ASEAN can enter into friendly
and mutually beneficial
relations
with three Communist states born out of the pain, hatreds and
suspicions of a terrible
war. This task will take a great deal
of patience and understanding
on both sides to resolve because
memories and suspicions from the past will for some time to
come dog our efforts to lay
the foundations for peaceful COexistence.
The task will be made even more difficult
by the
activities
within our own countries of Communist liberation
movements which claim solidarity
with and demand support from
Communist countries
outside ASEAN.
Add to these the continuing efforts
of great powerS to
work out their rivalries
through proxies in the region.
The
rivalry between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of
China could reintroduce
into our region a new form of Cold War
as both sides adopt one or another of competing Communist
factions in the interest
of great power competition.
These are difficulties
to be recognised but they are
Within our own countries we must continue
not insurmountable.
to fight our communists because in every
one of the ASEAN
countries the people have made it abundantly
clear that
Communism is not for them. But outside of ASEAN the question
of whether a government is or is not Communist is irrelevant.
The only test is whether it is friendly
or unfriendly;
it is under a compulsion to liberate us from ourselves
it to each of us to seek the better life our own Way.
We in ASEAN, though non-Communist ourselves,
the slightest
wish to convert
Commnuniststates
whether
or leave
have
to our way
life
nor
..
not
of
/5
5
life
nor will
we allow
others to use us
as bases for such
missionary work
We have learnt enough the past 30 years or SO
to realize that subversion and interference
in the affairs
of
another country is not, as is generally believed,
a Communist
manifestation.
Non-Commnist states too can develop an
irresistible
urge to mind other people's business especially
when the outsider has made a mess of his own.
SO the fact that ASEANbe to live with three Communist
states should not be viewed as prelude for turmoil and disaster
in South-East Asia. Peace and prosperity in South-East Asia
are not matters dependent on the ideological
complexions of the
states
or bad
bitter
in the
in the region but on whether each of us behaves as good
neighbours.
Having the same ideology has not eliminated
enmities! and conflicts
in the past, and I have no doubt
future.
If we in South-East Asia1 Communist and non-Communist
alike, realise that We have much to gain in the way of
security and prosperity through co-operation the greater the
prospects of each of us preserving the independence we have
won after centuries of alien rule.
Perhaps this difficult
task can be more speedily
accomplished if the South-East Asian states would re-read their
history during the past century.
Imperial rule from distant
shores waS imposed over almost all of South-East Asia with
numerically small European armies simply because when the
invaders arrived South-East Asians were already in the process
The conflicts,
mutual hatreds and
of liberating
one another.
sterile
ambitions of warring South-East Asian kingdoms were
skillfully
exploited to make the conquest of this region a
relatively
inexpensive venture for outsiders.
I have avoided, in this address, giving a balance sheet
of ASEAN's record the past ten years because I know that I can
produce different
and contradictory
balance-sheets and all
would be half-truths.
One balance-sheet could show that We could have done
better than we did and that would be right.
The other could
show that We had done better than what had been expected of
. ...
five
devoloping
. . . . . /6
five
developing
countires
and that would be right
in the field
of regional
cooperation
too.
But what is worth bearing in mind is that ten years ago
the five ASEAN countries were separate entities
going their
different
ways. Today there is at least a developing conviction
that not only are its over 200 million people members of a
regional community but also that they could better meet the
uncertainties
and challenges of the future through collective
effort.
This sense of belonging to a regional community may only
be at its incipient
stage but it was sufficiently
strong, I
think, to have enabled ASEAN countries to have met with
unexpected equanimity the deluge that some predicted for our
countries at the end of the Vietnam war.
True ASEANwas shaken but, two years after not an inch
of soil or any
significant
measure of confidence has been lost.
In the future we would certainly
need more than an incipient
sense of regional communi
ty to see us through the stresses and
Strains of life and that is the responsibility
of the present
generation
of ASEANleaders
towards the next generation.