These are the most important statements made by the former Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs and current ASEAN Secretary-General Dr. Surin Pitsuwan in his speech “ASEAN on the upswing” at the German Council on Foreign Relations on 6th September.
Originally, the smaller Southeast Asian countries Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines founded ASEAN more than 40 years ago to assert themselves amongst the giants China and India, said Pitsuwan. Today, it covers 10 nations, about 600 million inhabitants and is the EU’s fifth biggest trading partner. Most notably, the current financial crisis has shown that a shift of power towards Asia has taken place. “At that time, the EU members were standing in line, asking China to help them”, said the former Thai Minister of Foreign Affairs. ASEAN’s most important strategy consists in establishing free trade areas and improving the cooperation with EU. A monetary union and free movement of people according to the European model are not taken into consideration, due to possible fatal consequences. „Probably every East Asian citizen would go to Singapore to find a job“. In contrast to EU, the Asian association is based on regular meetings and trust-building measures. Debating sanctions or political pressure as they currently take place within the EU were unthinkable among Asians. „The EU is an inspiration for us, not a role model“.
According to Pitsuwan, the Asian region’s increasing importance has become visible since China, India, the USA, Russia and all 27 EU states will take part in the next summit in Bali in mid-October. Furthermore, a continual cooperation between the EU and the ASEAN member countries has led to greater political stability in Asia and all over the world, releasing the EU’s capacities for other crisis areas such as Libya or Iraq.