TRANSCRIPT OF MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS GEORGE YEO'S INTERVIEW WITH DOW JONES ON 16 JULY 2008
Q: What can we expect from this meeting this year? Any deliverables? Anything you can tell us?
Minister: There will be I think, two interesting events. One is the release of the Post Nargis Joint Assessment Report. That is done by the UN, ASEAN and the Myanmar Government - an extensive survey of the area affected by the Cyclone. Basically, the Irrawaddy Delta divided up into grids and each square quite carefully sampled. The general conclusion is the situation is not as bad as we have feared. No mass starvation or outbreak of epidemics. But of course, it is very difficult for those affected. They need shelter, they need food, they need equipment to till the land for the next crop, they need medicine, and they need water. All kinds of things - roofings, boats, nets and so on. Anyway, there will be a formal presentation next week. I can't remember the actual day itself. On the 21st? It will be by me, by the Myanmar Foreign Minister, by the ASEAN Secretary General, by the Head of the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance.
Q: That will be John Holmes, right?
Minister: Sir John Holmes. That's right. So that is one major event, and as part of it, all ASEAN Foreign Ministers will have to discuss what is the next step, but we can talk about Myanmar afterwards. Then the second interesting event will be the accession by North Korea to ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Cooperation. This was an invitation extended to them by the ASEAN Foreign Ministers which I conveyed when I was there...two months ago? Three months ago? Two months ago? That completes the accession by all of ASEAN, all our Asian neighbours. Of course, we are not a major player in the Korean Peninsula but it does represent a certain outreach by us and a certain response by them which I think is modestly helpful.
Q: Did you expect a response from them?
Minister: Yes, I first broached it to them last year, when the Foreign Minister...when I met the Foreign Minister in Manila and then I conveyed it officially to them after I got the approval from the Foreign Ministers during the Foreign Ministers retreat in February. They were quite careful, they wanted to know what were the obligations on them and that this is not, this is just between them and us, not something which should involve them with the major protagonists of the Korean Peninsula, so we assured that that indeed was the case. They just confirmed a few days ago, that they were going to accede. He will be here. The North Korean Foreign Minister will be also here for a bilateral visit and the new South Korean Foreign Minister will also be here on a bilateral visit, so we feel very honoured to be hosting both at about the same time. So I mean these are the major events on top of ASEAN, Myanmar or dialogue partners.
Q: Back to the Nargis Assessment, is it also in your assessment that it's time to move on from the recovery phase to the reconstruction?
Minister: Reconstruction is a word which many countries prefer not to use. Because some countries, particularly western countries do not feel they should be supporting the SPDC government, and reconstruction suggests the belief that the relief and recovery phase is past. So the word we have agreed to use is recovery, following relief, immediate relief, and that should continue for many more months.
Q: But it is gone past that phase already? Are you saying that in order to get the support of these western governments, you have to speak of a certain phrasing of how...
Minister: Well, it's a phrasing which expresses conceptually...let me reel back. When Nargis hit, I think all of us were concerned whether the relief effort should be politicised. In fact I would say, there were groups who had hoped that this would be the final push to bring down the regime. If that had been done, we'd be playing with people's lives, because obviously they needed urgent help and when warships were anchored outside, warships bearing supplies anchored outside Myanmar waters, the government was...they felt quite paranoid about it. We received reports that troops, instead of being sent down to help the victims, they were sent into defensive positions.
So for a while, there was a standoff between the Myanmar government and the international community. My Prime Minister, because we are the ASEAN chair, Prime Minister asked me to offer to the Myanmar government the, hosting of a meeting of Foreign Ministers to see how we could help. That came three weeks later. And when the meeting started, I was not optimistic because they seemed so beleaguered, the Myanmar government. That was on May 19. It was quite a dramatic encounter because the other ASEAN Foreign Ministers confronted our Myanmar counterpart asking him: "Look, what does Myanmar mean to us, and what do we mean to you?" The Indonesian Foreign Minister, Hassan Wirajuda, was particularly emphatic on this point. In the end, we agreed that ASEAN should help to build a bridge of trust between the Myanmar government and the international community so that it'd be an ASEAN-led international assistance effort. But we knew that there'd be lots of problems on the ground, so the Secretary-General of ASEAN would lead the high-level task force, and in Yangon there would be a tripartite core group. But the Myanmar Foreign Minister had to clear it with Naypyidaw. After our lunch, (we) adjourned discussion, he called back and told us that he got the green light. That was the major decision taken, It was a major move. It was very clear in our minds that we had to separate the humanitarian efforts from our political concerns about political developments in Myanmar. The moment we reached agreement in Singapore, we conveyed it to the Secretary-General, who was waiting for us, because without such an agreement, he couldn't have gone to Yangon, he couldn't have gone to Myanmar to meet...
Q: Sorry sir, you mean the UN Secretary-General?
Minister: Yes, the UN Secretary-General. He couldn't have gone to Naypyidaw to meet Than Shwe, Senior-General Than Shwe. So the moment that it was conveyed to him, he confirmed his flight. And a few days later he flew there and had a fairly long meeting with the Senior-General. And that set the stage for the pledging conference the following Sunday, which was a good...Were you there? (Dow Jones: No, Sir) It went well. After that, of course, there were complaints that visas were not being issued. Not all the complaints were... Some of the complaints were valid, not all were valid. The tripartite core group met every day and had to sort of wade through the problems and help sort them out.
By and large, the Myanmar Prime Minister played a helpful role and as the PONJA (Post Nargis Joint Assessment) report revealed, visas were in fact issued and international assistance agencies were able to get in and the aid has percolated through to all parts. So when you say a difference between recovery and reconstruction, this is the background. It's a rather long explanation. Immediately it turns upon the two constants we have which may be conflicting. One humanitarian, and the other political. So I would say, by separating the two, we were able to make progress on the humanitarian side. And the immediate crisis is past even though there is a lot of work still to be done, and for that work to be done, we should continue to separate the humanitarian from the political.
Moving to the political side now, recently, the Myanmar government invited Gambari back to Myanmar. He was supposed to go in May, but because of the Cyclone, he couldn't go. It'd be after August 15 and that is something we welcome. There is a roadmap with a timetable. They've had the referendum, and the voting was held. The referendum process was not verified by neutral observers. So one might question the legitimacy of the exercise. They reported over 90 percent support, which only aroused greater scepticism. But it's still a step forward because proceeding from it will be the elections in 2010 and that itself will create a new set of dynamics in Myanmar, which should be helpful.
All this reminded me of the process which Soeharto instituted in Indonesia, where all the trappings of democracy were unveiled but without the substance, it was all guided. But in the end, the procedures that were put in place were used for the real thing, after Soeharto fell. So once you have rules for elections and commissions and polling stations and MPs and so on, eventually that becomes a vessel within which real politics will eventually take place. We see that as a step forward even though we had doubts about some of the things that took place and we also regret the fact Aung San Suu Kyi's detention was extended even though by their own declaration, the referendum had approved a new constitution.
Q: Minister, you just said we, we meaning Singapore or we meaning ASEAN?
Minister: I think here, I can speak for all of us.
Q: But then you have a Charter that's being held up by some countries, well, Philippines anyway, who are holding it up because of Myanmar's human rights, so...
Minister: We can talk about the Charter. The Charter will have to be ratified by all 10 countries before it can come into force. So far six countries have ratified, Myanmar has recently ratified it and will be announcing it next week officially. That leaves Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. We don't see Indonesia and Thailand as a problem. Philippines - there were remarks made earlier by Filipino politicians that they can't ratify the charter unless it's for changing Myanmar. But our argument, the rest of us, to the Filipinos is, we can only hold Myanmar to the standards expressed in the Charter after the Charter is in force.
Q: So but then again, you have to have the Charter...
Minister: But I am not pessimistic. When we meet the Filipino senators, they tell us that it is do-able so I'm not pessimistic about the Philippines, I fully expect that the Charter would be fully ratified by the time of the next Summit at the end of the year in Bangkok.
Q: Is this a, I mean, is this also another issue with ASEAN that you have a communist Laos, a socialist Vietnam and then you have a military government in Myanmar and you have democracy in Singapore and Indonesia. How do you reconcile all of these differences? I mean, in your, as ASEAN chair, you've obviously seen those differences at work.
Minister: It's because we take into account the diversity that is Southeast Asia from the outset, that we were able to create ASEAN. If we had insisted on conformity, then ASEAN would never have taken off, because the diversity of Southeast Asia is not shallow, it is deep in its history.
We are not Europe, we don't have a common heritage in Greece, Rome and Judeo-Christianity. In our case, it is the fact that we are in between the two great civilisations of China and India, that unites us. A growing feeling that unless we clump together in the face of their rapid growth, we are at a severe disadvantage and could be divided as a result. So Vietnam, who was an adversary during the Cold War, immediately applied to join after the Cold War, because without ASEAN membership, it's very difficult for Vietnam to have a normal relationship with China, given its complex history of relations with China and the fact that China is so much bigger than Vietnam. But with a united Southeast Asia, we can deal with the major powers on some basis of equality. But not from the perspective of military strength, but on the basis of neutrality and openness.
Q: Is that just in theory though, Sir? I mean in application over the past year, what do you see? Can that be achieved, I mean, there are certain things, like the Charter, it's been hard to get that going...
Minister: Well, the Charter has made faster progress than we could have reasonably expected. Three years ago, I think few of us would believe that by the end of this year, we could have a Charter. And I myself, before in the Trade Industry and now in Foreign Affairs, I'm constantly cheered by the political will that is seen whenever we come to critical decision points. Yes, individual countries may have domestic difficulties, yes, bilaterally, there could be problems here and there, but when it comes to the ASEAN construction, somehow, when Ministers meet and leaders meet, they come to agreement and that's quite remarkable. What explains this? Is this goodwill? Is it mutual love or affection? I'm not sure, I think it is because of a common challenge and that common challenge is the rise of China and India, which impinges on all 10 of us.
That clarifies thinking and that is the explanation for that common political will.
Q: I know we are short on time, but can you sum up how you feel about the ASEAN chairmanship in one word? Can you, one word that would describe...
Minister: It's been an eventful year, when we took over from the Filipinos, we expected the Charter and its implementation, to be the key item on the agenda. It was, but we also had, in addition, the brutal crackdown of peaceful demonstrators last September in Myanmar, which forced us to meet in an emergency session in New York during the UN General Assembly and issue a strong statement. Then we have the Gambari process - we had hoped that the process could be backed by ASEAN as a community. Unfortunately, during the Summit last year, Myanmar told us that it did not want ASEAN involved in the Gambari process and that it preferred to deal directly with the UN security council. So my Prime Minister had sadly to convene a press conference late that evening, with eight other leaders standing beside him, reading out a statement that said, well, we offered, we tried, it's regrettable, but it's Myanmar's decision.
Then we had Cyclone Nargis, and we had to suspend all our political reservations and say look, let's concentrate on the humanitarian efforts. But some good has come out of it because we've created more trust now between Myanmar and ASEAN, between Myanmar and the world. It has also created in ASEAN, a determination to build up our disaster response capability, which will stand us well the next time we face a disaster as we must, from time to time. Then we also had the sharp rise in fuel and food prices, the fuel prices there's little we can do about, food prices, we can, we can't move away from international prices, but we can help assure supply within ASEAN because ASEAN is a net exporter of food, of rice. We should help each other if any country is in need. But I think the ministers have been talking about it, no country is prepared to commit more than what is in its own self-interest, but on the basis of international prices it'd be good if we say, look, we supply the region first before we supply outside the region.
Q: Is that something you've been talking about?
Minister: I think there's such a sentiment, but there's a reluctance to commit formally and the great difficulty is to reduce this sentiment into words. There's actually no reason why as Southeast Asia, we should be exporting our rice to the world, when there are parts of the region that are short of rice. But we are talking international prices, not subsidised prices.
Q: So it's something that you broach with your...
Minister: Oh it's something that the economic ministers have talked about, which I believe, more discussion on will help create a better response to.
Q: You have...
Minister: So it turned out to be quite an eventful year, it was a heavy responsibility, which was our turn to bear and I think we bore it as best as we could.
Q: Are you happy to give it up?
Minister: I'm...I must say I'd be relieved to pass the chair on to...Myanmar (note: should be Thailand) but ASEAN is a work in process and it's not as if you are on your own. It's like a 10-man jazz band, and each musician takes the lead in turn, but with all the others supporting, and shoring him up when from time to time he needs to catch his breath, or pause a little.
Q: You're also heavily involved in the Doha round...
Minister: Yes, that was many years ago.
Q: ...I mean it's still being held up. But I guess individually, within ASEAN, some countries are against the agricultural concession, Sir, if I may put forward. Can you see a breakthrough?
Minister: I don't think we are far from a deal in terms of actual positions, it'd be a great pity if we don't close because we'd be walking away from a deal which can add hundreds of billions of dollars to global welfare. That's a lot to walk away from because just because we think that certain parts of the deal are not as favourable as we would like them to be. I think between the US and Europe, there's a broad agreement on what would be a reasonable agricultural deal for the two of them. They have their demands on NAMA and some developing countries feel that they are asking for too much. Then for NAMA and for agricultural products, there are always sensitive areas, which always got to be negotiated over.
I'm not sure if they have sufficient political will to close it in the coming days and weeks, there's not much time. It's an opportunity for President Bush to leave behind a very important legacy because if you don't close now, given the way the global economy is going, we won't be able to close for many years. And in that meantime, the world may take a different turning, which should be very sad.
So I would urge all countries to take a strategic view. It's not easy, the US - people are looking beyond this administration already and India is going through a difficult period domestically speaking. The Indian Foreign Minister might not be able to come for the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting next week because of the confidence vote in parliament. Every country has its own domestic political constraint. Trouble is as far as Doha is concerned, the benefits are spread across a wide sector, so with trade negotiations, there's always the problem, the beneficiaries are not as well organised as those who would lose from the deal. Pascal Lamy will have a big job. He has to take some risk because if you don't, you will fail. If you do, there's at least a chance of success.
Q: Any closing thoughts, Minister? Anything, any other burning issues?
Minister: Condi Rice will be here...
Q: And actually all these are part of (inaudible), all the nations...
Minister: I would say the better political situation in Northeast Asia is a plus, for all the meetings that are coming up next week - restoration of good relations between Japan and China, that's a major development, progress on the nuclear issue with North Korea and that's a major development too, good for ASEAN + 3, good for the EAS, good for APEC and it will make the ARF next week more constructive.
Q: Sorry I just have one more thing, the AEC is still 2015, there's no rollback on any dates for that one right?
Minister: ASEAN community is 2015, the AEC is in phases, we are virtually already a free trade area for goods now, but there's still a lot to be done for services, that's to be expected. It's not a dramatic change of state from one to the other, it is a process of liberalisation that has been going on for many years, continuing in the right direction.
Q: Thank you sir.
Minister: Thank you very much.
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