By
H.E. Dr. Alwi Shihab
Minister for Foreign Affairs of Indonesia
(Excerpt from Keynote Address at the CSCAP Seminar on “Indonesia’s Future Challenges and Implications for the Region,” Jakarta, 8 March 2000)

More than three decades ago, the nations of Southeast Asia had already realized that not a single one of them could solve its own problems without the cooperation and support of all the others. That was why ASEAN was founded ---so that all the nations of Southeast Asia could form a community that works effectively for peace, that can conquer the basic problem of poverty and become globally competitive---a community that is aware of its common cultural legacy and shared ultimate destiny. This vision of the Founding Fathers of ASEAN has been restated for our time as a set of goals that the Association intends to achieve in the next two decades, which have been embodied in “ASEAN Vision 2020.”

We believe in this vision of enlightened regionalism. Indonesia’s participation in the work of ASEAN will therefore continue to be the lynchpin of Indonesian foreign policy for the simple reason that we cannot solve our problems in a vacuum. We must solve them within a social, economic and political environment and our most immediate environment in ASEAN. A considerable part of the solution to our economic problems lies in the success of ASEAN’s economic integration, in the achievement of AFTA, the ASEAN Investment Area and the ASEAN Industrial Cooperation scheme. The many initiatives of ASEAN in social and human development will help Indonesia enhance the quality, especially the technological competence of its human resources. The instruments for peace that ASEAN has developed and keeps refining---the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), the Treaty of SEANWFZ, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF)---serve to ensure that the economies of East Asia and the rest of the ASIA-Pacific, including Indonesia, are not distracted from the pursuit of prosperity by the disruptions of armed conflict and bitter dispute.

When President Abdurrahman Wahid laid down the foreign policy directions of Indonesia at his inaugural address on 20 October 1999, he adhered closely to the conventional wisdom that is today guiding ASEAN. He stressed the need for the restoration of Indonesia’s dignity, the maintenance of Indonesia’s unity and integrity, the forging of closer cooperation among Asian countries, and a policy of equidistance that entails the strengthening of relations and cooperation with all nations.

Today, ASEAN, like Indonesia, is taking steps to address then problem of its international image; it is moving to restore investor confidence in the region. It is also focusing on its cooperation with its Asian neighbours, particularly China, South Korea and Japan. Its newest dialoque partner is India. And yet it is maintaining important linkages with Europe through ASEM, with the American continent through APEC, and is initiating cooperative relations with Latin America, the Indian Ocean Rim and South Asia. Everything that Indonesia is trying to do as an individual country can be matched with and reinforced by a parallel activity in ASEAN.

For in the ultimate analysis, Indonesia is not in any way different from the rest of Southeast Asia. Our economic, social and political problems may be more severe as they are amplified by the immensity of our population and extensiveness of our territory, but we are essentially the same as everybody else in the region. We share the same historical and cultural legacy, the same contemporary struggle for development and stability, and the same eventual destiny.

As to what will be that eventual destiny depends on how well ASEAN and its Asia-Pacific and global linkages work, on how we can all make them work.

And that, to my mind, should be among the themes of the deliberations of this important conference.

I wish you success in this worthy undertaking.

Finally, I am honored to declare the international seminar on Indonesia’s Future Challenges and Implications for the Region initiated by the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific Indonesia and Japan Committee officially open.