The ASEAN Miracle by Kishore Mahbubani & Jeffery Sng

Page Count: 286
Chapters : 6
Time Taken: 7 Hours

Keith’s Take:

This book makes an extremely persuasive case as to why:

• ASEAN deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.
• ASEAN has some best practices regional organisations can emulate
• Singaporeans should be proud of their leaders’ foreign policy achievements

The third point is something that remains highly underrated today.

The economic miracle of Singapore as an East Asian Tiger is well documented, but most Singaporeans know little about its role as an East Asian dove.

Pairing this book with Rajaratnam’s biographies will help you understand why ASEAN is a peace miracle of Southeast Asia.

(Here are my notes on Raja's biography for your reference)

I highly recommend you get this book.

My notes below don't do the book justice.

Keith’s Notes

ASEAN as a Miracle

The notion that ASEAN is a miracle emphasises ASEAN's unexpected success in maintaining regional peace, fostering economic growth, and promoting cooperation among diverse nations.

How diverse are we?

Only in Southeast Asia do all these different cultures and civilizations meet. No other region in the world can match its cultural, religious, linguistic, and ethnic diversity. In a relatively small geographical space, we find 240 million Muslims, 130 million Christians, 140 million Buddhists, and 7 million Hindus. This range of religious diversity is remarkable in itself.

Peace in diversity is not a sufficient win condition for ASEAN to be considered a miracle.

I looked at the initial sentiments around the formation of ASEAN - it was almost universally negative.

Nowadays, when someone launches a startup, a project, our instinct would be to (at the very least), politely wish them success.

But, damn, back in those days- there was almost nothing positive published when ASEAN first came into being.

Scholars pessimistically declared that with decolonization in full-swing, Southeast Asia was going to be the Balkans of the Orient.

China, Asia’s largest power condemned ASEAN as a neo-colonial plot.

The US, primarily saw ASEAN as a means to contain communism in Southeast Asia.

I think it’s the fact that the initial start-state of ASEAN was one that appeared destined for failure. The diversity was almost too stark that it was bound to invite conflict.

The Right Way To Understand ASEAN

The importance of ASEAN as a regional organisation is better appreciated when you zoom out.

ASEAN never progresses in a linear fashion. It often moves like a crab : it takes two step forwards, one step backwards and one step sideways. Viewed over a short period, progress is hard to see. Yet, miraculously, when one takes a longer view, analyzing progress decade by decade, ASEAN’s forward progress becomes visible.

The Western criticism of ASEAN has been that it has no regional decision-making body. The Chair of ASEAN in any given year cannot make any decisions on behalf of the region.

But, is that a minus?

After all, ASEAN is called the Association of South East Asian Nations and not the Southeast Asia Union.

Forming a loose organisation was our original intent.

It reminds me of what our former FM, George Yeo wrote in his essay for Think China,

Indeed we are elliptical in our ways but that is not necessarily a weakness. Little by little, the countries of ASEAN have grown closer and the sense of a common ASEAN citizenship is slowly thickening, layer by layer, like kueh lapis.

There is a deep instinct to avoid taking sides whenever possible.

The Four Waves

The authors discuss the four waves: Indian, Chinese, Muslim, and Western waves.

In short, they are:

• The Indian Wave - Brought Hinduism, Buddhism, and the Sanskrit language to the region, shaping the culture of many early kingdoms. (When you see the Angkor Wat, the Borobodur Temple, and the Bagan- these are the artefacts of that wave)
• The Chinese Wave - Contributed through trade and migration, leading to significant cultural and economic influence.
• The Muslim Wave - Islam arrived through traders and missionaries, spreading primarily in the maritime regions. This led to the rapid Islamization in the region (especially modern-day Indonesia and Brunei)
• The Western Wave - The Western colonial powers brought Christianity, modernization and economic exploitation. Unlike the previous waves, this influence involved widespread violence.

Again, George Yeo says that ASEAN is the "historical expression of Southeast Asia."

I get what he is intimating.

There is an invisible but extremely strong cultural operating system running the region.

Southeast Asia has always been a crossroads for different cultures and civilisations. The region has experienced waves of Indian, Chinese, Muslim, and Western influences, demonstrating an ability to adapt, absorb, and integrate these diverse influences.

I think it is this historical capability that has given us the diplomatic suppleness needed for peace.

The Colonial Legacy on Southeast Asia

I am most interested in the Western Wave because we feel its impact most viscerally today.

Most of us have a vague understanding of the colonial legacy of Southeast Asia.

Colonisation in the region emerged as an outgrowth of the Industrial Revolution.

As the West experienced prosperity and efficiency gains through industrialization, demand for raw materials dramatically increased. Naturally, they came to Southeast Asia, a region which had vast supplies of sugar, spices and everything nice.

What was their legacy?

We know the bad parts.

the brutal violence used against militarily weaker societies and the ruthless exploitation of peasant and urban labour. In the 1840s, for example, the Dutch Cultivation System (cultuurstelsel) led to famines and epidemics across Java, as the Dutch made excessive demands of corvée labour from villages to grow cash crops such as coffee, sugar cane and indigo.

The racism, the violence and the disregard for Southeast Asians. (It’s wild how fast the British were ready to yeet out of Singapore, the moment the Japanese came knocking hard. So much for an impregnable fortress!)

Reflecting on the colonial legacy in Southeast Asia, it turns out their most positive contribution was a happy accident.

While some may point to the infrastructure or education the West gave Southeast Asians - these were left behind in all colonies (and not unique to Southeast Asia).

Their unique legacy, as it turns out, was that they didn’t screw up the drawing of modern borders here.

Fortunately, these borders fitted in well with the underlying political and social fabric of Southeast Asian societies, or at any rate were less of a shock to local societies than were the lines on the map drawn in the Middle East or between India and Pakistan.

That's the real miracle- there were no Sykes-Picot lines in this part of the world.

Enemies Are Temporary

It’s possible to imagine a world in which Russia and Ukraine stop fighting and become at peace.

Vietnam's entry into ASEAN is nothing short of a geopolitical miracle, and it should encourage doves.

The Vietnam-Cambodia War began in December 1978 when Vietnam invaded Cambodia in response to repeated border skirmishes. Vietnam swiftly overthrew the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, capturing Phnom Penh in January 1979. The war ended in 1989 with the withdrawal of Vietnamese troops from Cambodia, and the conflict was formally resolved with the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements.

Throughout this decade, ASEAN refused to cede a single shred of legitimacy to the Vietnam-controlled Heng Samrin regime.

The Vietnamese were clearly upset.

In its many references to “genuine neutrality” and “true independence,” for example, Hanoi continued to suggest that ASEAN was neither truly neutral nor truly independent.

They not only questioned the legitimacy of ASEAN governments but also suggested Vietnam's continued political, if not material, support for insurgent activity in the ASEAN countries. In fact, despite overtures to individual ASEAN members, Hanoi continued to resist dealing with ASEAN as an organisation, thus denying ASEAN and its goals recognition and legitimacy.

Six years after the agreement, Vietnam joined ASEAN.

Imagine beefing with an entire region for close to a decade, calling their governments illegitimate and the regional organisation- an imperialist plot.

Then, joining them within the same decade.

The ability to reconcile and re-integrate a former foe is something ASEAN can teach the world.

The Deng Xiaoping Factor

By contrast, when Deng emerged as China's leader, one of the first things he did was visit three ASEAN capitals in November 1978.

These visits made him aware of how backward China had become relative to even the ASEAN countries.

In 1992, during a tour of southern China, Deng said, "Singapore's social order is rather good. Its leaders exercise strict management. We should learn from their experience, and we should do a better job than they do."

Deng also explicitly called upon Guangdong province to catch up with the "four dragons" over the next two decades, "not only catching up with them in terms of economic prosperity but also in terms of social order and public conduct". As a result, instead of denouncing ASEAN, the Chinese government soon came to learn from it.

If the next leader of China had been as antagonistic to ASEAN as Mao was in the late 60s, we could have seen communist regimes take over ASEAN. (That would have been big bad)

Thankfully, Deng was much friendlier to ASEAN than his predecessors.

The change in Chinese political leadership was completely out of ASEAN’s control, and we greatly benefitted from this luck.

However, it also shows how much of ASEAN’s fate in its earlier years depended on great powers' decisions.

Singapore as ASEAN's Catalyst

The more I read about Singapore history, the more I realise that the founding fathers had balls of steel.

In the 1970s and 1980s, all five were members of the "Group of 77" (G77), the developing countries bloc. The dominant ideology of the G77 bloc was anti-capitalist and anti-free market. Foreign investment was spurned. Indeed, foreign investors were often portrayed as capitalist leeches sucking the blood of poor Third World peasants and workers.

Kishore experienced this G77 ideology first-hand when he served as the Singapore ambassador to the UN from 1984 to 1989. The Second Committee of the UN saw ferocious debates between the American-led free marketeers and those opposed, led by the Latin Americans. Major Third World economies, including India, Nigeria and Egypt, would sing the anti free-market tune. In this context, Singapore was often a lone voice. Fortunately, we were brave enough to walk into the lion's den of G77 meetings and defend the virtues of foreign investment, often alone.

The additional upside of Singapore embracing FDI first was that we essentially served as the trial for the region.

(To be fair, we didn’t have a choice)

Singapore’s bold and early decision to swim against the dominant Third World current—and its early success with that strategy—may have had a catalytic effect on its neighbouring ASEAN countries.

The economic benefits of Singapore's pro-foreign investment policies and drive for exports soon became clear. Singapore's economy grew steadily, at an average rate of around 8 per cent in the 1970s and 1980s. This explains why Malaysia, despite its lingering acrimony towards Singapore after the bitter separation of 1965, decided to emulate Singapore's policies.

ASEAN as The Thucydides Escape

The Thucydides Trap is a concept in international relations that describes the tendency towards hard conflict (i.e war) when a rising power threatens to displace an established power.

This originated from the ancient Greek historian Thucydides, who chronicled the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE) between Athens (the rising power) and Sparta (the established power). Thucydides argued that Sparta’s fear of Athens’ growing power made war inevitable.

The fundamental dynamics are as such:

• A new rising power starts to challenge the dominance of an existing power; it creates tension that often leads to conflict.
• Fear, distrust, and miscalculation on both sides can contribute to this conflict, as the established power seeks to protect its status and the rising power seeks to assert its newfound strength.

Normally, shifts among great powers generate a great deal of friction. It would be perfectly normal to see, for example, increased friction between China and Japan or China and India. Yet, there has been relatively little friction in either case. One reason for this, to use an engineering analogy, is that ASEAN played a kind of "lubricating" role by "softening" the interactions among the great powers in the Asia-Pacific region.

ASEAN's role in providing a neutral geopolitical platform for great-power engagement is particularly valuable in the current context of major great-power shifts. The reason only ASEAN can do this is that it is the only party trusted by all the powers in the region

In a later chapter, the author elaborate,

[ASEAN] acts as the hub, if not the leader, of regional multilateral forums for East Asia. … Despite ASEAN's limitations, no other organization can challenge its role as the hub of regional multilateral diplomacy.

American Soft Power

Close ties between ASEAN and America also grew out of the experiences of young ASEAN citizens who studied in North American universities.

Many personal networks in East Asia took shape as a result of students forging lifelong bonds while attending leading American universities. When many of these students went on to become successful leaders, the ties they developed with their East Asian peers became instrumental to the peaceful development of the region. This is probably one reason why America has a greater reservoir of "soft power" in East Asia, including Southeast Asia, than in any other region.

This remains true to this day.

Many of Singapore’s top policymakers, entrepreneurs, and professionals attend the top schools in the West. The first wave of Singaporean corporate leaders primarily work for American MNCs.

Here are just some of the leaders who studied in the West :

• Hun Manet (Prime Minister of Cambodia) – He completed his undergraduate studies at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and earned a Master’s degree from New York University.
• Lawrence Wong (Prime Minister of Singapore)- He graduated from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, earning a Bachelor of Science in Economics. Wong then pursued a Master of Public Administration at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
• Anies Baswedan (Former Governor of Jakarta and 2024 Presidential Candidate) Anies Baswedan completed his Ph.D. in Political Science at Northern Illinois University.

That’s why it's surprising to me that so many people in the Western world know so little about our region.

What About Human Rights

The idealist sees human rights as an universal good that all nations should pursue.

The realist sees human rights as statecraft. It’s a tool powers employ to achieve their national aims.

America was completely instrumental in its relations with many of its Cold War allies. Once their practical use diminished, America began to discover "human rights" defects in many of them and began to turn away.

If Christianity was used to sanctify colonialism, then human rights are now used to sanctify bullying.

With the Cold War at an end, there was widespread joy and relief that America had prevailed against the Soviet Union. During a private conversation with Kishore, one American captured this spirit well when he remarked that it was a relief to wake up in the morning without fearing that a nuclear war could break out at any moment. However, America also began to see its many Cold War allies in a new light, questioning their usefulness and seeing their flaws in sharper relief. Since it would have been seen as unethical (not to mention ungrateful) to use and then abandon allies, America needed an ethical justification.

Fixing US-ASEAN

Policies change in Washington when administrations change, but in some delicate areas of American foreign policy (the status of Israel and Saudi Arabia, for example), there is a "deep consensus" that shields these relationships from short-term changes in administration.

Washington might usefully develop a deep consensus on its policy towards ASEAN built on three key principles: consistency, delicacy and education. Call them the C, D and E principles.

The biggest missed opportunity thus far has been America not deploying its incredible soft power to its advantage.

However, one American asset is growing: its "mind-share" among Southeast Asian elites. This stems from the increasing number of young Southeast Asians studying at American universities today compared to the 1980s.

Educational exchange also has other benefits. In an essay titled "The Fusion of Civilizations", which Kishore wrote with Larry Summers, the authors put it this way: There is every reason to be confident that the condition of the world will continue to improve as pragmatism and the use of reason become universal. Western universities have been a crucial driver of this trend. It is not just that their curricula have been copied around the world; the entire ecosystem of a modern research university is being replicated, and it is the graduates of these Western-style universities who have in turn introduced modern methods into education, public health, economic management, and public policy more generally.

The greatest American export in the past century is not the goods and services they have sold globally.

Instead, it’s the means of production.

The production of knowledge, the production of goods and services, and the production of organizations.

The US has produced some of the world’s most brilliant minds in science, technology, and business. Why not send some of them to ASEAN to give guest lectures or even teach for a semester or two?

The China-ASEAN Situationship

To borrow modern dating parlance, the US pretty much ghosted ASEAN. Conversely, China is in a situationship with ASEAN.

The relationship is simultaneously affectionate and ambiguous.

Let's take a look at how it started;

ASEAN did not join in the Western ostracism of China, and by remaining friendly with China it reaped some extraordinary rewards. When several ASEAN countries, especially Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, suffered enormously from the Asian Financial Crisis of 1998–99, China helped out by refusing to devalue the RMB. This act of friendship was deeply appreciated. In addition, Zhu Rongji, then premier of China, made an extraordinary proposal for a free trade agreement (FTA) between ASEAN and China at the ASEAN-China Summit in Singapore in November 2000. The formal proposal from Zhu Rongji came a year later in Brunei in 2001.

This is particularly impressive when you consider that it was a Chinese Communist Government that proposed the first ASEAN FTA, not any of the market economies in Asia.

But, even lovers tire of each other.

There is no heaven on earth.

The authors recall,

The lowest point was seen in July 2012, when the ASEAN foreign ministers held their annual ministerial meeting (AMM) in Phnom Penh. For 45 years, without exception, the ministers had agreed to issue a joint communiqué, but in Phnom Penh they failed to do so. Why? The general perception was that the Cambodian government, which chaired the meeting, had come under pressure from China not to allow any references to the South China Sea in the joint communiqué. Since the other nine countries felt, as a matter of principle, that such a reference should be included, political gridlock developed. ASEAN unity was shattered in Phnom Penh as a result of perceptions of Chinese pressure.

The ASEAN group needs to agree, by traditional ASEAN consensus, to walk a middle path between being supplicant and hostile to China. This group should make it clear to China that an independent ASEAN would be best for China's long-term interests as it would provide an independent and neutral presence that could help lubricate and soften China's relations with other major powers, especially Asian powers such as India and Japan.

They then make a plea to the Chinese to be wise if they want peace in the region:

To understand the value of ASEAN, China should understand the depth of suspicion it faces in Northeast Asia and compare that to the relative lack of suspicion in Southeast Asia. The difference in political chemistry between Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia can be credited to ASEAN.

Leaders in ASEAN and China need to engage in subtle and sophisticated long-term calculations to ensure that ASEAN-China relations remain on a steady and positive course despite the few hiccups that have affected these relations in recent years. This approach requires a deep understanding on the part of all parties of the critical interests of each side.

The Risks of Foreign Aid

ASEAN, for its part, needs to be more self-confident in dealing with the EU. Since many ASEAN countries receive aid from the European Commission and from individual EU member states, they are accustomed to behaving as supplicants. This has to stop. ASEAN can learn from India, which also receives aid from the EU.

The EU gave India US$78 million in aid during 2014, while ASEAN countries received US$304 million

When the EU tried to impose conditions on India by demanding that certain standards of democracy and human rights be met, India, which is the world's largest democracy, told the EU to go fly a kite.

The wisdom of the Singaporean leaders, particularly LKY, was to seek investment, not aid.

LKY knew that aid didn’t come free. There were terms and conditions to the money.

The dynamic between the benefactor and the beneficiary often becomes patron and dependent. In exchange for financing, the dependent must most likely comply with the patron’s demands.

Naturally, this unbalanced exchange often leads to a power dynamic where the dependent becomes reliant on the patron, potentially compromising their autonomy and decision-making ability.

A country like India, with its enormous influence, could afford to play that game. But, could Singapore afford to stand up if it receives aid?

However, the value exchange is clearer in an investor-investee relationship, and the incentives are aligned. By investing their capital, the investor signals trust in the investee’s capability and vision. The only expectation: make a return on the invested capital.

This naturally has a more equitable power dynamic.

The Threat of Great Power Rivalry

Many other challenging issues will surface between the US and China in the coming decades. In the worst-case scenario, which cannot be ruled out, ASEAN's integrity as a unified organization could be threatened. A strongly pro-China government in Cambodia, for example, could clash with a strongly pro-American government in the Philippines.

The leaders of the US, China, Japan and India, in particular, should reflect carefully on whether it is in their long-term interest for ASEAN to remain united as a single community providing stability to Southeast Asia, or to break apart

But, ASEAN should not bank on how the great powers would act.

The best bet would be to diversify their buffers.

ASEAN needs to develop the resilience to deal with such geopolitical stresses and strains. One way of achieving resilience is to develop deep relations with other great powers, declining or emerging.

To that end, I think Singapore should push to join the BRICs soon. Now that Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand have become partner countries of BRICS, we should be in it, too.

Challenge of Local Politics

Senior Minister, Lee Hsien Loong warned that,

Domestic agendas have to be attended to but if that becomes all consuming and you don't have space for ASEAN cooperation or you're unable to make the case for ASEAN cooperation—for example in investment guarantees, trade, technical cooperation or human resources—then we'll have the form of it, but not have fully fulfilled the substance

As Southeast Asia’s different political systems mature, voters will likely have higher demands of their governments. This means politicians will need to expend more of their bandwidth resolving local problems. Given that most citizens are agnostic about Southeast Asian geopolitics and would prefer to solve bread-and-butter problems, it is totally plausible that ASEAN might be deprioritised as a byproduct of domestic political pressures.

The threat of great power rivalry and a myopic obsession with local politics can come to cost us dearly.

(The Front Row Podcast aims to reduce my relative ignorance of ASEAN and its cultural richness. I also think that media is a powerful tool for shaping cultural affinities within Southeast Asia. It’s just that we are not doing enough of that now. My hope is also to use Front Row to do that.)

Who is ASEAN's Custodian?

ASEAN has some serious weaknesses. The first is that it has no natural custodian. The EU has remained strong and resilient because France and Germany accepted a common responsibility to keep the organization going. Hence, strong leaders such as Charles De Gaulle, Konrad Adenauer, François Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl believed that they had a great responsibility to maintain and strengthen the EU. The EU never faced any danger of being neglected.

The absence of a natural custodian poses a challenge for ASEAN. Who owns ASEAN? Who will nurture it, protect it and develop it for the long run?

Naturally, it ought to be Indonesia.

After all, it's the largest economy. But, domestic politics dominates the conversation. They might not find it worth their while to be the custodian of ASEAN.

The Singaporean in me argues that we can step up but, for a small country like us, we might appear too overzealous. In fact, "in the past, there has been resentment when Singapore pushed hard for greater ASEAN cooperation."

After all, no one likes a teacher's pet.

That said, I think we should be maximally helpful. We don't need to be the captains of the soccer team, but we can be strong vice-captains. We should do our best to assistthe current chair of ASEAN.

I think Singapore can do more to strengthen the sense of ASEAN-ness in Singapore and Southeast Asia:

• Promote a sense of ownership at the citizen level of ASEAN identity.
• Encourage educational exchanges across Southeast Asia
• Media projects on ASEAN to showcase our shared history

If we were the catalyst for the free-market reforms in SEA, why can't we fill the same role in other areas?

ASEAN's Biggest Opportunity

Of the three opportunities - mulitlateralism, geoeconomics, and the Asian Century, I think the third one has the biggest upside for Singapore and ASEAN.

The third rising tide that can benefit ASEAN is the general rise of Asia in world affairs, what Kishore often refers to as the coming Asian century. The idea of the Asian century was first triggered by the emergence of Japan and the great success of the "four tigers" of Hong Kong, South Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. However, the rise of China and India has given real weight to the sense of the inevitability of the Asian century, as their large populations serve as the basis of massive economies. This is a return to normalcy, as China and India had the world's largest economies through most of human history. ASEAN stands to benefit enormously from this situation.

A simple look at the world map will explain why. Geography is destiny, and Southeast Asia is geographically close to both China and India. Central Asia may also enjoy the same physical closeness, but it is far from China's economic growth centres, and the natural barrier of the Himalayan mountains stands between Central Asia and India.

By contrast, major trading routes have linked Southeast Asia with China and India for over 2,000 years

As China and India’s economies grow, we, as a region, will naturally grow with them. This is a return to historic Southeast Asia, except this time, the growth will be much more glorious. The chance for Southeast Asia to rid itself of poverty completely and enter into a century of prosperity is right before us.

(What a time to be alive!)

Now, where would that capital city be?

The capital city should represent a harmonious fusion of civilisations, a confident expression of the ideals of each Asian culture, and a place where every Asian can feel comfortable.

Where in Asia- do we have such heterogeneity? Where in Asia- can you find a mosque beside a church, where Indians and Chinese marry (at an increasing rate?) Where in Asia- do you have top-tier universities capable of doing world-class Asia-centric research?

Now, I would like to suggest to you that the answer is Singapore.