Covid-19 pandemic is a call to arms for Asean to do more, not a death knell of regional unity
- The spike of coronavirus cases is a failure of some governments rather than a dereliction of duty by Asean
- Southeast Asia’s interconnectedness demands a coordinated regional response, and Asean must develop strategies for future outbreaks
However, regional integration and community-building projects have come with unrealistic expectations of Asean during the best of times, and certainly so during this difficult period.
Observations that the bloc should have anticipated and prepared for a regional pandemic might be misguided. Claims that Asean’s belated regional response is grounds for casting doubt on regional unity or even the organisation’s viability are likewise premature and hyperbolic.
Asean’s critics must realise that despite Southeast Asia’s experience in managing the Sars outbreak in 2003, Covid-19 presents a new set of challenges given its significantly more transmittable character. Also, the timing of the initial outbreak could not have been more unfortunate, as it coincided with the Lunar New Year and its resultant flows of migrant workers both within and beyond China, much of which remains difficult to document. Beijing’s initial reticence in acknowledging the virus’s severity despite evidence to the contrary also presented a substantial hurdle for the international community.
This combination of factors meant the susceptible population size was uncertain, and exacerbated difficulties in generating reliable data for an accurate modelling of Covid-19’s infection rate and death toll.
Asean governments ought to be given sufficient time to fully understand how the viral outbreak unfolds in their respective national contexts before being asked to think regionally. After all, effective national measures are an indispensable foundation for a potent regional response. The two are not mutually exclusive, but build upon each other.
With more information about the virus coming to light each day, national governments are rapidly recalibrating their responses too. Singapore, for instance, has just introduced stricter social distancing measures coupled with a third supplementary budget. Because national responses are still evolving, a sweeping conclusion of Asean’s negligence might be overstated.
What some Asean member states can be faulted for, however, is their failure to take the virus seriously before their own countries were hit by an outbreak. National governments are first and foremost accountable to the people they are appointed to serve. Their inability or unwillingness to take precautionary measures, even in the absence of local transmissions, means that they merely deferred rather than eliminated the necessity of making difficult decisions and sacrifices.
National governments are liable when they do not act decisively to curb large social or religious gatherings despite possessing sovereign and executive power – luxuries that Asean does not possess.
Yet, this should not be conflated with a negligence of Asean or an indictment of the regional organisation’s relevance and utility to Southeast Asia.
The spike of Covid-19 infections and fatalities in the region is a failure of some national governments towards their own citizens rather than a dereliction of duty by Asean. As an intergovernmental organisation, Asean can only act decisively and meaningfully when its constituent members display consistent commitment across the board.
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Southeast Asia’s interconnectedness and interdependence demands a coordinated regional response. Coordination does not and should not imply homogenisation. Just because one Asean member state introduces a particular measure does not mean the entire region should consider following suit. Such coordination must take into account difficulties resulting from the region’s inherent geographical and economic diversity.
For example, although lockdowns might be practicable in Asean countries that have more decentralised political and socioeconomic structures, they might not be feasible in member states with denser or more integrated networks. Furthermore, some Asean member states might have more resources than others to implement strict measures that are costly both socially and economically.
Most importantly, the fact that various Asean countries are undergoing different stages of the outbreak – with some abandoning contact tracing and containment entirely – means that each country must have its own set of strategies and objectives that render some measures relevant and others obsolete.
Instead, coordination means timely and open communication between all Asean governments about prospective measures before they are officially announced and implemented. Advance warnings and consultations are especially important for measures that affect cross-border and intraregional flows of people, goods, and capital, since these have profound domestic consequences for other Asean countries. Such communication will allow other regional countries to anticipate potential ramifications and harness resources to put adequate countermeasures in place.
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In other words, coordination in Asean’s context should, at this stage, mean synergising and harmonising national efforts to ensure that each country retains the necessary latitude to implement measures most suitable to their own domestic contexts, while maximising opportunities for different national strategies to complement one another to form a coherent regional whole.
Regional coordination also entails managing spillover effects of national policies into other Asean member states, and helping to cover the bases of fellow countries that might be struggling. All these will also help to strengthen goodwill – or at least minimise hostility – among the regional community.
Such nuances, however, should not prevent Asean from elevating its regional response. The next global pandemic is not a question of if, but when. Moving forward, Asean must leverage existing mechanisms to develop a robust and flexible pandemic response capacity that can deal with this and other strains of highly contagious viruses. For one, a regional stockpile of pandemic supplies will help to even out the playing field for Asean member states that might be less equipped to address disease outbreaks as rapidly as others.
Differences in geographical and economic conditions among Asean countries are profound hurdles for a coordinated regional response against Covid-19, but alarmist voices could afford to be qualified.
This pandemic should be framed as a call to arms for Asean to do more for the region’s inhabitants, not as a potential death knell of Asean unity and viability. Amid these uncertain and desolate times, cooler heads and moderate voices – along with cautious optimism – must prevail.
Glenn Ong is a research officer at the Asean Studies Centre, ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute.
