A prime mover

A convinced internationalist posture, especially in economic terms, has guaranteed Thailand’s unquestionable affection and interest towards the ASEM process since its beginning. It is in this sense not a coincidence at all that Bangkok was chosen as the first venue of the biennial meeting, back in March 1996, and that Thailand, accordingly, acted as chairman of that meeting.

Since the first time the idea of creating a dialogue platform between ASEAN and the EU was raised at the World Economic Forum in Singapore, in October 1993, Thailand saw a great opportunity to jump on and further push forward the wagon of trade and economic liberalization. The institutional framework likely to be provided by an Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) was in fact conceived, and not only by Thailand but by both the regional blocs, as the "missing link" between two of the three major regions of economic growth in the world: Europe and East Asia.

At the beginning of the 1990s East Asia had confirmed itself as a global economic powerhouse, showing double digits growth figures, not only in the already established tiger economies, but also in a series of other satellite economies in the region. Being one of the latecomers, Thailand apparently felt the urgency to project itself on the global economic arena and to guarantee access to markets and investments for its booming export-oriented economy.

Besides, since North America had already guaranteed a preferential entrance to East Asia through the APEC door, it was not difficult to convince both Asians and Europeans of the need to act fast in order not to be sidelined in the global integration process. The Asian side in particular, was eager to bring European investment levels into the region at least close to the already significant levels of trade inflows. According to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), East Asia accounted only for less than one percent of cumulative foreign direct investments originated in the EU countries between 1982 and 1992. ASEM was therefore ready to be kicked off, in the name of its main pillar - that is, the economic one – and Thailand, using its prerogative of chairman of the first meeting, made sure that the focus of the discussion would not be diverted towards "minor issues". The prominent topics put forward in the agenda included, for instance, the strengthening of multilateral cooperation through the World Trade Organization (WTO), the promotion of investments, cooperation opportunities between the private sectors of the regions, and the transfer of technology. Cooperation in other fields, such as human resources development, environment, and cultural issues was not exactly prioritized and debate on "sticking points", such as Burma and human rights in general, was definitely not encouraged.

Further down the road

Once the first ASEM summit was over, with no major surprises in terms of future direction of the group and of envisioned cooperation areas – among the various outcomes, the creation of an Asia-Europe Business Forum to strengthen business-to-business links – Thailand maintained its active involvement in the process.

To begin with, in order to appease European concerns with environmental issues and following from an agreement on the matter reached during the first ASEM Summit, Thailand volunteered to housing an Asia-Europe Environmental Technology Center (AEECT). That the real purpose of such an honorable initiative could have been much more grounded in opportunistic interests – such as the opening of a gateway for the inflow of investments and expensive technology -, was not regarded by both parties as relevant or as a problem. On the contrary, the strong words of approval for the proposal by the German Ambassador to Thailand cemented an initiative that would have not only guaranteed a good deal of technology transfer, but also boosted the image of Thailand as potential partner for future economic cooperation. In confirmation of the relative priority that this proposal enjoyed in the ASEM process, it will suffice here to state that the official launch of the center in Pathumthani province, happened only at the end of March 1999, exactly one year after the date originally agreed.

The Burmese mess

Then Thailand had to play a very careful patchworking role when the dispute around Burma erupted within ASEM, ignited by the EU’s refusal to issue visas to Burma’s officials and further blazed by Mahatir’s threat to boycott the second Asia-Europe Meeting. In that particular occasion Thai officials kept high their reputation as very skilled advocates of "compromising" solutions to situations that might endanger a profitable harmony. And on this occasion, the same officials did not even try to conceal the main reasons for their damage-control intervention, as testified by the then Deputy Permanent Secretary’s words that confirmed as Thailand’s priority the seizure of "the opportunity to strengthen economic relations with EU countries". In other words, issues of human right violations in the neighboring country – admitted to ASEAN in August 1997 – were not allowed to spoil a very promising future of economic integration between the two regional blocs.

A revival of the issue took place again at the beginning of 1999, when an ASEM Ministerial Meeting (AEMM) faced a deadlock and an ASEAN-EU Joint Cooperation Committee meeting got postponed. Thailand, as a coordinator for the meeting, found itself once more in a central position and acted accordingly. Although initially the Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Saroj Chavanaviraj, maintained that the AEMM was a "bloc-to-bloc meeting" and therefore Burma, as member of ASEAN should have been allowed to attend, about a month later his Foreign Affairs Minister, Surin Pitsuwan, produced another intriguing "compromise" solution to the problem. His proposal was focussed around the idea of a "corridor meeting" between ASEAN countries, excluding Burma and Laos, and European countries, which would have allowed for a very informal environment for bilateral and multilateral discussions. And again, Thai top officials were quite adamant in admitting that all these efforts to reach a compromise found their main rationale in the attempt to avoid any disruption of economic relations between the two regions.

Burma has been a thorny issue to deal with since its entrance into ASEAN, not only for Thailand, but for the other members of ASEAN as well, in that it often represented an obstacle to ASEAN-EU ties. The very same institutional nature of ASEAN, which holds as sacred the principles of "non-interference" and "consensus-based decisions", has often immobilized any possible initiative from within the association to openly and seriously address the issue. When compared with the strong support showed in the past by regional leaders as Mahatir or Suharto to the military junta of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC), Thailand’s position can be defined as more balanced. However, by the only fact of being one of the (founding) members of ASEAN and, probably more important, sharing a 1.800 km long border with its controversial neighbor, Thailand has been also very careful in the past in criticizing the SPDC domestic deeds. In a certain way, its policy in this respect could well be defined as ambiguous, as its normally conciliatory position towards Burmese refugees has, from time to time, dramatically changed into open intolerance. Following the siege of the Burmese embassy at the beginning of October 1999 by an exiled Burmese splinter group called the "Vigorous Burmese Student Warriors", and the strong critical reactions coming from within Burma on the alleged incapacity of Thai authorities to guarantee a secure environment to Burma diplomatic missions, the Thai government embarked on a strong campaign of identification and monitoring of Burmese citizens – mostly refugees – staying in Thailand. A parallel offensive by the Thai military targeting Karens’ camps in Burma relying on the use of heavy artillery, which allegedly killed 200 ethnic Karens, triggered the desperate seizure of the Ratchaburi Hospital in January 2000 by a small group of members of the "God’s Army".

Economic stakes

The strong agenda for liberalization agreed upon during the first ASEM summit, quite ironically, got an unexpected boost during the financial crisis that swept through most of Asia since July 1997. Instead of refraining from further opening their economies to the powerful and dangerous forces of the global market, most of the crisis hit governments decided in fact to comply with the neo-liberal conditionalities attached by the IMF to its loans.

Thailand, where the crisis first hit, was one of the countries that most heavily dug into the big IMF sponsored purse. In addition to that, Thai authorities did not waste any opportunity to try to bring foreign money into the country, no matter if that money was exactly at the origin of the problems, or if that approach meant selling out domestic assets to foreign companies. Calls from different sectors of society to carefully consider the possible long-range consequences of such an approach, or even to look instead to responses going in the opposite direction, like the capital control measures implemented by Malaysia, were quickly and easily sidelined.

The ASEM framework became therefore another attractive opportunity to solicit international support and cooperation to Thai ailing companies and society at large. It is in this light that Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai’s enthusiastic reaction to a British proposal for the creation of an Asia-Europe Trust Fund needs to be interpreted. As a matter of fact, while the original objectives of the proposal, put forward by Great Britain at a G 7 meeting in February 1998, included providing financial expertise and resources to help restructure the financial service sector and having experts look into the social impact of the Asian crisis, the Thai government, through its Foreign Minister, explicitly raised its aims by calling for more concrete and dynamic initiatives to provide export guarantees and liquidity support to the private sector.

Throughout the crisis, Thailand relied strongly on the argument that the time had come for European governments involved in ASEM to show the real spirit of the process and their sincerity and commitment to the Asian region by providing financial assistance to its countries. According to a senior Asian diplomat, "the ASEM was launched two years ago because the European countries wanted to engage economically with Asia and to make a balance to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation" and now " Asia wants to know whether the EU is the fair-weather friend or their true friend in time of crisis".

Although this request for foreign intervention was often camouflaged under the rationale of providing enough resources to create and support adequate social safety nets, the real intention of the appeals was eventually confirmed by Chuan Leekpai’s statement at the second ASEM meeting in London, at the beginning of April 1998. The Thai Prime Minister and coordinator of Asia on that occasion warned against the temptation for some developing countries to "question the value of an open economy", or even worse, to use the current financial crisis as "an excuse to close their economies". Instead, he urged both developed and developing countries to adhere to market liberalization. The crisis therefore, eventually provided the perfect opportunity to push for a full-scale opening of Asian regional markets.

The involvement of Thai civil society in ASEM

Civil society in Asia has been quite attentive towards the official ASEM process since its beginning. Thai groups, in particular, have been playing a central role in the broad civil society movement not only because of the strong involvement of their government, but also because the first venue of the meeting was in Bangkok, in 1996. The main features of Thai civil society involvement in the process, however, are mainly focussed on human rights issues. The whole debate around Burma’s admission into ASEAN and the following attempts to negotiate an official entrance for that country into the ASEM process via its membership of ASEAN, have certainly provided the many groups and individuals working on the issue with enough reasons to get involved in the debate. To date, it is mainly through regional, though Bangkok based, human rights groups such as Forum Asia and ACFOD (Asia Cultural Forum on Development) that Thailand’s civil society has kept a high level of involvement in the international process. Other organizations, such as Focus on the Global South, that were among the main promoters of the first parallel ASEM People’s Forum in Bangkok, continued to stay involved, mainly as coordinating bodies for Asian participation into the process, but also in elaborating on some of the issues raised by the Forum.

Grass roots participation and interest in ASEM, instead, has mainly been organized in so far in function of the contingent objective to take the opportunity to voice some of the most urgent concerns in an international arena. Assembly of the Poor, in particular, has often been involved in discussions and events to further strengthen the attention given to issues such as disempowerment, poverty, comprehensive security, state and international institutions’ responsibilities in development policies, etc. The main problem, however, faced by national grass roots groups has been the lack of an accessible and understandable regional analysis to show them the relevance of building up links and engaging in debates at the international level. It is precisely in this direction that the above mentioned regional groups have to move forward in the future, in order to create the space for and to guarantee a much stronger and constant involvement of grass roots organizations.

The vast social havoc produced by the Asian financial crisis provided Thai civil society with potent reasons to look at ASEM as a relevant arena and as an appropriate target for its advocacy for people oriented policies. Especially the fact that most of the financial speculators that allegedly triggered the crisis were actually based in Europe, pushed Thai NGOs and various social activists to challenge the official ASEM in an attempt to call for energetic curbs of financial flows.

However, as the momentum for social action within ASEM started to fade away, due mainly to a well orchestrated process by the leading international financial institutions to wither and appease the widespread resistance to their modus operandi, and as another long pause of two years appeared on the horizon after the conclusion of the long expected London summit, Thai groups, as well as their other counterparts in the other ASEM countries, got absorbed in their daily activities and put their involvement in the ASEM process on a low profile.

The upcoming Seoul meeting has all the potentialities to bring about a revival of Thai civil society groups’ involvement in the various issues connected and connectable to ASEM. The Korean hosts have established a structure of more than 100 organizations with 13 well defined thematic groups. The Korean government itself has revealed a great deal of openness towards the needs and proposals of the ASEM People’s Forum, as demonstrated by its support to the Social Forum proposal. At home, the Thai government has shown concrete interest in better understanding the structure and the objectives of the People’s Forum in general and of the Thai groups involved in its activities in particular. Even assuming that its interest might stem from the need to keep an eye on the overall process in terms of security concerns, the interaction represents a positive development by itself. And finally, social activists from Thailand have joined in both the advocacy tours that have been organized during this year first in Europe and then in Asia.

The process is picking up again. Now it is up to those organizations that have been keeping a continuous link with the ASEM process to stimulate the interest and ensure the active involvement of broad sectors of Thai society, and in particular of representatives of grass roots movements.