ASEAN member states also worry that the American president may be consumed by other priorities that distract him from Asian issues. Their most recent point of reference is the Bush administration, whose preoccu- pation with the Middle East led U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to skip the ASEAN Regional Forum twice in three years, and President Bush to miss a scheduled U.S.-ASEAN summit in Singapore in 2007.5 While the Bush years saw the appointment of the first U.S. ambassador to ASEAN and discussions on a U.S.-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (FTA), Rice and Bush’s absence from these meetings has not been forgotten. And while the Obama administration has repeatedly stated its long-term commitment to ASEAN, U.S. officials have also emphasized that the group needs to demonstrate leadership in tackling tough issues in the Asia-Pacific region in order to live up to its desired “driver’s seat” role in regional affairs.6
This will not be an easy task for ASEAN. Its immediate future pres- ents challenges as the association grapples with contentious issues that threaten to undermine its cohesion. A clear example is ASEAN’s unprec- edented failure to issue a joint communiqué in Cambodia in 2012 due to internal disagreements regarding the South China Sea. The incident raised questions about the group’s capabilities and leadership in the face of divi- sive disputes and external power interventions.7 More importantly, these worries are likely to persist in the future. In the next few years, ASEAN’s annually rotated chairmanship will pass from Cambodia to other relatively small, under-developed states: Brunei in 2013, Burma in 2014, and Laos in 2016. These countries, capable as they are, may not have the ability to drive regional integration or tackle controversial issues with the same effectiveness as Indonesia or Singapore.8 This casts doubt on ASEAN’s ability to sustain the dynamic leadership it has enjoyed under Rodolfo Severino (1998-2002), Ong Keng Yeong (2003-2007), and Surin Pitsuwan (2008-2012).9 All of this is occurring as the clock ticks on ASEAN’s ambitious goal of creating a single ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by the end of 2015.
đang được dịch, vui lòng đợi..