ASEAN not ready for One ASEAN: Ong

Chua Guan Cheong
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN

THE ASEAN people might not be ready to embrace the concept of One ASEAN Community due to a lack of promotion and communication, said former ASEAN secretary-general (2003-2007) Ong Keng Yong.

Speaking to The Brunei Times during a video interview, the diplomat said that while the ASEAN Connectivity Master Plan is in place at policy level, more effort should be put into mass public awareness promotion of the programme. "You can say that we have a master plan for connectivity, but if the ordinary people don't appreciate what you are doing with regards to connectivity, then there is insufficient public opinion or insufficient popular support for the concept of this connectivity.

"So we have to do a lot of work with regards to educating our citizens across all 10 ASEAN countries about connectivity.

"We need to promote connectivity as a way to bind our ASEAN people together, and I don't think we have done enough on that."

The ASEAN Connectivity Master Plan is designed to reduce inconvenience at intra-ASEAN borders.

Ong, who is now the high commissioner of Singapore to Malaysia, said there needs to be a mass promotion campaign to help people understand that these plans are designed to promote trade and investment.

The diplomat was speaking after giving a keynote address in the first session of the Fifth ASEAN-China Young Entrepreneurs Forum titled "Can ASEAN Last Another 50 Years?", in which he said ASEAN will need to meet the 4Rs (Relevance, Resilience, Review, Relationship) to survive.

"If ASEAN stays relevant, if ASEAN strengthens its resilience, if ASEAN conducts regular reviews of its different processes and different operation frameworks; and if ASEAN develops strong people-to-people relationships, ASEAN will survive for a long, long time," said Ong in his speech.

"What is the meaning of staying relevant? ASEAN has been active in engaging everyone who wants to come to SEA (Southeast Asia), and who wants to make friends and do business with us. If ASEAN can (continue to) engage in groupings outside of Southeast Asia and beyond, we will stay relevant."

He went on to say that "Resilience" in terms of the ASEAN countries meant staying together, growing together, developing economies, expanding markets and continuing to engage in trade and investment activities with other groupings.

"Review", he said meant conducting reviews of ASEAN's processes and activities with ASEAN-related entities such as ASEAN+3, ASEAN+6, the East Asia Summit and the ASEAN Regional Forum. "In ASEAN, we have a lot of meetings, and we have to ask ourselves why do we need so many meetings? Can we be more effective by making better use of the media and the Internet to tell people what we are doing? Which is why we must always do the review, if we don't review, our operational framework becomes cumbersome, meetings and other institutions may become outdated, so this will help us keep fresh, constantly reviewing, constantly asking if there is another way to become more efficient, spend less money to do the same amount of work."

Dipetik dari - The Brunei Times