It is now official: the Asean Community's Post 2025 vision will be extended by another ten years from 2035 to 2045. Asean Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn revealed the 20-year vision in Bangkok last week, much to the surprise of diplomats and the local audience. The decision was taken at the 7th meeting of the High-Level Task Force on the Asean Community's Post-2025 Vision (HLTF-ACV) in March 19-20 in Belitung, Indonesia.
The two-day event, which was co-chaired by Indonesia and Malaysia, made considerable progress on the core elements of the future of the Asean community beyond 2025 for the next ten years. As a risk-averse grouping, the task force finally agreed that a 20-year vision was necessary, with a mid-term review in 2035. Indeed, this marks the first time the 56-year-old organisation has come up with an unusually long vision at a pivotal moment when global geopolitics and geo-economics are extremely fluid. Kudos must go to the current Asean chair, which has insisted from the very beginning that 2045 should be the new timeframe to figure out how to make Asean become more relevant and resilient.
From now until 2025, the task force will face one frequently asked question on Asean's most important challenge -- how to work out a vision that will not only ensure the grouping's relevance in the geopolitical situation 20 years from now, but also its resilience both domestically and internationally when Asean could presumably be the world's No.4 economic power after China, the US, and Japan/India. Obviously, at this juncture, nobody can really say for certain what Asean 2045 will be like. In a nutshell, any prediction, for good or for worse, could be highly aspirational or deeply illusional.
When the task force was set up last year in Phnom Penh, the 20-member group, two from each member country, was given specific responsibility to prepare the Asean Community's Post 2025 vision. The group has two tiers. The first one comprises the region's eminent persons (EP) who must be former ministers or former secretary generals such as Ong Keng Yong -- a Singaporean diplomat, and Le Luong Minh -- a Vietnamese politician and diplomat. The others must either be former vice ministers or equivalent to oversee the visioning process. The second tier calls for high-level representatives (HLR) with extensive knowledge and experience in Asean's work and processes. They could be current or past senior officials nominated by the member countries. These representatives would put together all input coming from consultations with stakeholders.
Over the past several months, the task force has held so-called "interface consultations" with Asean-related agencies, including the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR), the Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB), and the Asean Business Advisory Council (Abac). Furthermore, the HLTF-ACV also met with experts from the Economic Research Institute for Asean and East Asia (Eria), a Jakarta-based economic think tank, to exchange views on pertinent issues.
At this stage, beyond these professional organisations and the private sector, it is an open secret that some Asean members, such as the Philippines and Indonesia, would like to have more input from grassroots bodies as well as civil society organisations to ensure that Asean in 2045 will be a truly people-centred community, where "no one will be left behind and everyone will have a stake". Indeed, it is hoped that the Asean 2045 will have more input from the bottom-up process in which all voices can be heard across all dimensions.
At the moment, for instance, the Asean documents only use the dual phrases of "people-oriented and people-centred communities". In the coming decades, ways must be found to marry these two concepts together to serve Asean citizens. Otherwise, how can the 2008 Asean Charter be fulfilled? For example, taking the human rights situation in Asean as a case study, complaints over human rights violations are aplenty, and they cannot all be solved. But the voices of victims and dissidents can be heard and scrutinised.
After all, Asean is a caring and sharing community. There is hope that suitable Asean-led mechanisms on human rights can be established in the future to address the rights issues, including civil and political rights. Among the task force's members, discussions on Asean human rights were very tense, with divergent viewpoints. The trajectory of human rights trends in Asean will depend on the sincerity of future Asean chairs leading up to 2045 on whether to follow up or implement what has been agreed upon.
It is well known that since the establishment of the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) in 2009, Asean has been concentrating on promoting rather than protecting human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as the principles of democracy, the rule of law and good governance. It is fitting that the current Asean chair is proposing the setting up of an Asean Human Rights Dialogue, which will serve as a new forum for member countries to discuss the human rights situation just like they did at the United Nations Human Rights under the universal periodic review (UPR) system. If Asean members agree, the Asean way will be voluntary. Currently, only one small Asean member has not taken part in submitting its UPR to the AICHR.
Concerning the future blueprint of the Asean Community's Post 2045 Vision, the Belitung meeting, the seventh in the series, has already identified key regional and global trends that would impact the Asean community that require harnessing new technologies and ensuring opportunities for all its citizens. Asean could have the world's third-largest population after China and India in 20 years. Some of these are megatrends, such as continued ripple effects from geopolitical shifts, energy crises, and food security. Then there are hi-tech issues related to artificial intelligence, digital transformation, and cybersecurity. On top of these trends, the world, as it is, will continue to face challenges posed by pandemics and natural disasters.
Therefore, before the task force proceeds with its substantial narratives, it must first report to the Asean leaders ahead of the 42nd summit in Labuan Bajo on 9-10 May, when both sides will have their first hearing. How the leaders will react to the task force's articulations of Asean's core elements remains to be seen. Unlike the Asean Community's Post 2025 vision which focused on the bloc's three pillars -- political/security, economic, social and culture -- the new 2045 vision could include the new intergenerational challenges that different generations would be required to tackle continuously within the Asean community.
Truth be told, to be relevant in the future world that is more polarised, Asean has to get its act together and strengthen the bloc's centrality to remain a pivotal global player. These points were not lost in Bangkok last week when Dr Kim Hourn touched on the geopolitical situation, stating his personal belief that all major powers are friends and partners of Asean. Therefore, Asean needs to have more dialogues, engagements and consultations through the Asean-led mechanisms to address new challenges confronting Asean. "Asean wants to see the enhancement of strategic trust and reduction of tension in the region, also focusing on conflict prevention," he reiterated.
Indeed, Asean wishes to formulate strategic plans to prevent any great power from dominating Southeast Asia under the Asean roof. As such, the task force needs to take bolder but deliverable visions. Certainly, key Asean organs and structures will remain unchanged in the next two decades, in particular, those time-tested principles enshrined in the Bangkok Declaration of 1967 that include consensus-making, non-interference in internal affairs as well as non-use of force, which will further consolidate Asean centrality and the community's connectivity and sense of belonging. Obviously, some liberal interpretations are required.
Asean in 2045 will certainly have more members, which include Timor Leste and, in the years to come, Papua New Guinea, which has been the grouping's longest observer since 1986. There could also be other new members from the Indo-Pacific region if the broader geopolitics warrant this. By that time, Asean would need a several-fold increase in its budget at the Jakarta-based secretariat. Currently, each member pays an equal membership fee of approximately US$2 million (68.8 million baht) annually. Clearly, Asean would not adopt the European Union's deferential contribution with different voting weights. Asean members want to continue the system of equal pay with an equal vote.
There are still millions of things that have not been discussed about what Asean needs to do for the next two decades after 2025. Whatever challenges emerge, the bloc must continuously demonstrate to the global community, especially powerful dialogue partners, that this community is determined and ready to tackle them collectively. It is important that the peoples of Asean must fully trust the bloc's ability and capacity to take care of them.
