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Subject: theaustralian: 'Push to join ASEAN defence talks'
fall out    6/4/2008 12:41:42 AM
Patrick Walters, National security editor | June 04, 2008 AUSTRALIA wants to join the annual ASEAN defence ministers meeting in a move that would help cement Canberra's security ties with Southeast Asia. Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon said yesterday he was keen to explore the idea of Australian membership of the two-year-old forum with his 10 ASEAN counterparts. He said he had had informal discussions on the ADMM issue during last weekend's Shangri-La Dialogue, an annual conference in Singapore involving regional defence ministers and military chiefs. The aim would be to have Australia and New Zealand join the ADMM in an "ASEAN-Plus" meeting, which would link ASEAN with the South Pacific's principal defence players. Mr Fitzgibbon said he hoped to pursue the issue with key ASEAN counterparts. "I am very conscious this would only work if there were consensus amongst the existing members," he said. The issue of expanding the ADMM into an ASEAN-Plus forum was raised publicly in Singapore but the ASEAN ministers declined to comment publicly on whether they would support such a move. The ADMM was first convened in 2006 as a regional security forum bringing together the 10 ASEAN countries. The inaugural ADMM agreed that the forum should be "open, flexible and outward looking" in terms of engaging ASEAN's friends and dialogue partners. The idea of creating an ADMM-Plus with Australia and New Zealand would only proceed with the consent of all 10 members, including Burma. ------- Just wondering on your thoughts on what our play should be regarding ASEAN; our combined trade with the group is bigger than any single trading relationship we have, bigger than China or Japan or the US. Our economy is over $1.1trillion AUD which is larger than the combined ASEAN economy (not on PPP but nominal) and our defence budget is by far the biggest out of any of the ASEAN members. It would make sense economically and militarily for ASEAN to include Australia (and NZ) into the group, however the cultural barriers to still exist, particularly with Burma needing to approve which is doubtful. Anyway, thoughts anyone? FO
 
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Nanheyangrouchuan       6/4/2008 2:52:25 AM
Expect China to resist the presence of any western nation.  That would throw a monkey wrench in its plans to rebuild the old Ming-Qing dynasty self-contained worlds of Chinese domination.
 
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DropBear    ???   6/4/2008 6:34:45 PM
 
Nan, China isn't even a member.
 
The 10 member nations are:
 
Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
 
Most of those countries probably wouldn't want much to do with China (culturally) anyway.
 
 
 
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Nanheyangrouchuan       6/4/2008 7:43:32 PM
It has official observer status.
 
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fall out       6/4/2008 7:47:08 PM

 

Nan, China isn't even a member.

 

The 10 member nations are:

 

Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

 

Most of those countries probably wouldn't want much to do with China (culturally) anyway.

 

 


Most of those countries do indeed have a long history with China, an at times painful history so I agree the member states are not very keen on engaging China to that extent, part of the reason I would say for creating ASEAN was to lift their own power and influence whilst attempting to limit China's, at least in their region.

Australia otoh is a different kettle of fish, we are big enough to represent good value in what we can bring to the table but are not too overpowering as for the group to treat us more like a threat (like they do with China every now and then).

However, I suspect that if Australia was an Asian nation we would have been an ASEAN member from the very beginning so the most important barrier is the cultural barrier so let's see if a career Asian diplomat can pave the way (anyone see today's paper's;  Rudd wanting to form an Asian-Pacific union??)  more so than the old dog Howard.
 
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DropBear       6/4/2008 10:41:04 PM
I would think that the somewhat frosty on again, off again relationship we seem to have publily with Malaysia would be a sticking point in our being selected by some of the member states.
 
Funny how we are a member of APEC but can't get full support for ASEAN.
 
Curious.
 
 
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fall out       6/5/2008 3:41:09 AM

I would think that the somewhat frosty on again, off again relationship we seem to have publily with Malaysia would be a sticking point in our being selected by some of the member states.

 

Funny how we are a member of APEC but can't get full support for ASEAN.

 

Curious.

 


That's more to do with Mahatir; he's gone now and so has the attitude.

Our attitude towards Asia however is still around; no surprise that the Liberal's are divided over a union.  Multilateralism ain't the Lib's strong suit...

 
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Aussiegunneragain       6/5/2008 10:10:29 AM
I don't think we should be tripping over ourselves to engage with ASEAN. Most of their work is ineffectual, they are far too tolerant of lousy regimes like Burma's and thier membership criteria has strong racist overtones. I don't want Australia to be seen to be lending credibility to that sort of rubbish by kow-towing to them. We have strong bilateral and multi-lateral defence ties in the region, so AFAIC we can afford to ignore this.
 
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fall out       6/9/2008 2:04:32 AM

I don't think we should be tripping over ourselves to engage with ASEAN. Most of their work is ineffectual, they are far too tolerant of lousy regimes like Burma's and thier membership criteria has strong racist overtones. I don't want Australia to be seen to be lending credibility to that sort of rubbish by kow-towing to them. We have strong bilateral and multi-lateral defence ties in the region, so AFAIC we can afford to ignore this.



And what better way at influencing Burma's despotic regime than by joining in dialogue with them.
 
Personally I think ASEAN should show some balls and issue an ultimatum, democratize or your not part of ASEAN anymore...
 
On another note, what would people here think of a unified currency for the Asia-Pacific region?  Economics aside, travelling would be awesome, one currency, free movement across the world's largest and most populated area.
 
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gf0012-aust       6/9/2008 5:06:41 AM

Personally I think ASEAN should show some balls and issue an ultimatum, democratize or your not part of ASEAN anymore...


that might cause the singaporeans to blanche a bit - they're not exactly a galloping democracy..... :)

 
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Aussiegunneragain    FO   6/9/2008 5:32:25 AM




I don't think we should be tripping over ourselves to engage with ASEAN. Most of their work is ineffectual, they are far too tolerant of lousy regimes like Burma's and thier membership criteria has strong racist overtones. I don't want Australia to be seen to be lending credibility to that sort of rubbish by kow-towing to them. We have strong bilateral and multi-lateral defence ties in the region, so AFAIC we can afford to ignore this.



And what better way at influencing Burma's despotic regime than by joining in dialogue with them.

 Personally I think ASEAN should show some balls and issue an ultimatum, democratize or your not part of ASEAN anymore...

 On another note, what would people here think of a unified currency for the Asia-Pacific region?  Economics aside, travelling would be awesome, one currency, free movement across the world's largest and most populated area.


Mate, I hate to say it but if you believe that having a chat to Burma's military leaders through ASEAN is going to have any influence on them, then you may as well start believing in the fairy's at the bottom of the garden. Furthermore, if you believe that ASEAN is going to issue any ultimatums to it's members in their internal affairs, then you could safely believe that Tinkerbell is f*cking the Chief Gnome ;-).
 
ASEAN is built on the principle of "non-interferance", i.e. don't tell the elites who run your neighbouring state that they are being naughty for oppressing and ripping off the great unwashed. In fact I think that "non-interferance" has even been allevated to the status of an "Asian Value", by those who it suits to do so. That's why ASEAN a particularily useless forum through which to address human-rights.
 
As for a unified currency, it ain't going to happen while there is so much economic disparity between the countries in the region. Can you imagine how difficult it would be if you had an event like the Asian financial crisis in 1997, which affected the likes of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Phillipines, but not Australia and Singapore? The central bank would have the impossible task of setting interest rates for widely varying economic circumstances. Also, if a strong economy like Australia dragged up the value of the regional currency it would destroy the competitiveness of weaker economies like Thailand, which rely on cheap exports and tourism for their economic development. It can only work in a place like Europe where there is a comparable levels of wealth.

 
 
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