On June 2, 2007 at Stanford University, the Southeast Asia Service Leadership Network (SEALNet) hosted a well-attended dinner to celebrate its third year of activity and its plans for social service projects in five Southeast Asian countries in Summer 2007.

SEALNet faculty adviser Donald K. Emmerson kicked off the event by congratulating the students on their accomplishments, talents, and enthusiasm. Leadership coach and author Leng Lim, whose Southeast Asia Leadership Initiative fostered the creation of SEALNet in 2004, gave an inspirational talk to the students who would soon leave for Southeast Asia to implement the network's projects. Other speakers included SEALNet Co-Director and Stanford graduating senior Viet Huynh (Stanford 2007) who was thanked for his commitment and service to the organization since its founding.

SEALNet's agenda for 2007 represents a dramatic expansion from the network's first project in Summer 2005. In that year the students delivered a dozen computers to a youth organization in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, and helped local youths learn how to use them. In Summer 2007 the following projects are planned:

Project Cambodia (Phnom Penh, 19 June - 1 July) empowers young Cambodian performing artists and selected high school students to spread awareness of Khmer traditional performing arts among Cambodian youths.

Project Indonesia (Sekayu, South Sumatra, 26 August - 8 September) promotes earthquake and sanitation awareness among members of a vulnerable rural community.

Project Philippines (Cebu, 18 - 29 June) disseminates attractive media messages to raise local and national awareness of the risk of gastrointestinal illness from worms.

Project Thailand (Krabi, 27 August - 7 September) tackles environmental problems and raises ecological awareness among inhabitants of a tsunami-affected area.

Project Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City, 19 - 30 June) develops a sustainable vocational English program for street children that can help them get jobs in tourism and other service industries.

SEALNet's goals include:

• Creating a cross-cultural network linking students and professionals interested in social and development issues in Southeast Asia;
• Empowering students for positive social change through service leadership projects and by inspiring other students to become leaders in their own communities.
• Working through community service leadership to help make Southeast Asia more united internally and more engaged internationally.

WASHINGTON, May 24 (IPS) - This year the Association of Southeast Asian Nations celebrates its 40th birthday, and it has big plans. After four decades of being largely a political and security alliance, ASEAN is accelerating its plans for economic integration.

ASEAN leaders are so eager to pull together into an economic community that they recently decided to move the goalposts. The economic benchmarks originally planned for 2020 have been moved up to 2015.

"The mission of this economic community is to develop a single market that is competitive, equitably developed, and well integrated in the global economy," says Worapot Manupipatpong, principal economist and director of the office of the Secretary-General in the ASEAN Secretariat. He was speaking last week at an Asian Voices seminar in Washington, DC, sponsored by the Sasakawa Peace Foundation.

The single market of 2015 would encompass all ten members of ASEAN: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. According to the projections of the ASEAN Secretariat, the single market will be accomplished by removing all barriers to the free flow of goods, services, capital, and skilled labor. Rules and regulations will be simplified and harmonised. Member countries will benefit from improved economies of scale. Common investment projects, such as a highway network and the Singapore--Kunming rail link, will facilitate greater trade.

Although there will not be a single currency like the European Union's euro, the ASEAN countries will nevertheless aim for greater currency cooperation.

"ASEAN's process of economic integration was market-driven," says Soedradjad Djiwandono former governor of Bank Indonesia, and it was influenced by the "Washington consensus" favoring increased liberalisation. "It is a very different framework from the closed regionalism of the Latin American model," he continues. With multilateral talks on trade liberalisation stalled, efforts have largely shifted to bilateral negotiations. "There has been a proliferation of bilateral agreements that developed countries use as a way to push a program for liberalising different sectors," Djiwandono concludes.

So far, ASEAN points to increased trade within the ten-member community as an early sign of success. But, overall trade share -- 25 percent -- pales in comparison to the 46 percent share of the North American Free Trade Agreement countries or the 68 percent share of EU countries. And with intra-ASEAN foreign direct investment rather low -- only 6 percent in 2005 -- financial integration lags behind trade integration.

The ASEAN approach differs in several key respects from the EU model, which originated in a 1951 coal and steel agreement among six European nations. ASEAN's origins, in contrast, have been primarily political and security-oriented, observes Donald Emmerson, director of the South-east Asia Forum at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford. "The success attributed to ASEAN is that it presided over an inter-state peace ever since it was formed. There's never been a war fought between ASEAN members."

Also distinguishing ASEAN from EU is the latter's institutionalisation. "ASEAN is radically different," Emmerson continues. "The much discussed ASEAN way is consultation, not even voting, since if they vote, someone will lose. Sometimes the consultation goes on without result. Sometimes decisions are reduced to the lowest common denominator. It also means that rhetoric predominates." This consultative process will be tested in November, when ASEAN leaders gather to adopt a charter, something that the EU has so far failed to accomplish.

Another difference with Europe is the enormous economic disparities among the ASEAN members, with Singapore and Brunei among the richest countries in the world and Laos among the poorest. These economic disparities are reproduced within the countries as well.

Worapot Manupipatpong points to two ASEAN initiatives for closing the gap. There is help for small and medium-sized enterprises. And the Initiative for ASEAN Integration,"basically provides technical assistance to Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar so that they can catch up with the rest of the ASEAN members," he says. "Attention will be paid to where these countries can participate in the regional networks, what comparative advantage they have, and how to enhance their capacities to participate in the regional development and supply chain."

Then there are ASEAN's efforts to address "public bads," according to Soedradjad Djiwandono. "When there is a tsunami or a pandemic," he argues, "the worst victims are the marginalised or the poor. Addressing that kind of issue has some positive impact on reducing inequality."

"The gap between the early joiners and the later joiners will continue to be substantial because ASEAN has always been more of a forum and less of a problem-solving organisation," observes Karl Jackson, director of the Asian Studies Program at the School for Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. "As a result one would expect that these gaps would be closed only as individual countries increase their rates of growth." He attributes the inequality within countries to the middle stage of growth experienced by almost all societies: "Inequality increases before the state becomes strong enough to redivide some of the pie and take care of the gross inequalities caused by rapid economic growth."

ASEAN is banking on financial and trade liberalisation increasing the overall regional pie. On paper it is an ambitious project. But "the low hanging fruit have been plucked," says Donald Emmerson. Tariffs on the "easy commodities" have already been reduced to less than 5 percent. But non-tariff barriers to trade remain, and member countries are very protective of certain sectors.

Also tempering the region's optimism is the memory of the Asian financial crisis. The crisis began in Thailand in 1997 and spread rapidly to other countries in the region. One school of thinking holds that capital mobility -- "hot money" -- either caused or considerably aggravated the crisis. Since the ASEAN integration promises greater capital mobility, will the region be at greater risk of another such crisis?

"One consequence of the economic dynamism of the Asia-Pacific region," notes Donald Emmerson, "is that the accumulation of vast foreign exchange reserves -- obviously in China, but in other countries too -- more than anything else represents an asset that can be brought into the equation as a stabilising factor in the event of a financial crisis." Also, he continues, as a result of the ASEAN plus Three network, which adds China, South Korea, and Japan to the mix, the 13 countries have "made serious headway toward establishing currency swap arrangements that would come into play in an emergency on the scale of an Asian financial crisis."

Karl Jackson also looks to currency reforms as a hedge against future crisis. The Thai baht and the Indonesian rupiah are now unpegged currencies. "You will not have a situation in which the central bank of Thailand loses 34 billion US dollars defending the baht," Jackson argues. "Instead, the baht will appreciate or depreciate according to market forces."

But Jackson still remains cautious about the future. He points to the large number of non-performing loans in the Chinese banking sector. Also, there is "this anomaly of the U.S. absorbing two-thirds of the savings coming out of Asia, plugging it mostly into consumption rather than direct investment," he observes. "Eventually there has to be some kind of readjustment. The real value of the dollar must fall." (END/2007)

Reprinted by permission from IPS Asia-Pacific.

The visit of China's President Hu Jintao to the United States this week is yet another opportunity for chatter about the "Chinese threat.'' In the lead-up to his arrival, we have heard rising voices from Congress and from the administration on everything from China's currency manipulation and piracy of intellectual property to its military buildup.

Do not be deceived. There is no real appetite in either Washington or Beijing for confrontation over any of these issues, much less a serious exploration of the challenge that China presents to American global leadership.

Neither government can afford an escalation of tensions. Economically, we are too intertwined. Strip away the packaging on the $200 billion trade deficit with China and you will find American companies running global assembly lines that begin in Ohio, pass through Malaysia, and end up in southern China.

Strategically, the United States is painfully dependent on China to try to cope with the greatest security challenge in northeast Asia: North Korea's nuclear program.

Beijing is wedded to its doctrine of "China's peaceful rise.'' First formulated three years ago, it aims to keep things calm with the United States and most of its neighbors, buying time to manage the tightrope act of continuing high growth while preserving domestic stability.

In any case, Washington is too bogged down in the Middle East to do more than bark now and then about China.

"At the strategic level, the United States is really focused like a laser on the Middle East,'' and the Chinese like it that way, said Asian security expert Kurt Campbell. "They appreciate the fact that with the U.S. attention focused elsewhere, it allows China to play a larger role in Asia as a whole,'' he told a gathering last week at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Typically, while Washington is focused on Hu's visit, the Chinese defense minister is in the midst of an unprecedented Asian tour that will take him to North and South Korea and to Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam. China's prime minister has just finished a swing through Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Cambodia.

In my own travels through Asia recently, from South Korea and Japan in the northeast down to Singapore, Vietnam and Hong Kong in Southeast Asia, I found a stunning growth in China's influence. The question of how to deal with China's rise is high on every agenda.

Everywhere people are looking over their shoulder, worried about China's burgeoning strength and presence. They are equally fearful that the United States is abandoning the field to China. But they also don't want to choose between these two powers.

That is even true in Japan, where the popular media and politicians are full of talk about the Chinese threat. But look a little closer and you will also find a growing counter-movement, particularly in elite policy circles, warning against becoming separated from the rest of Asia. The battle for succession to Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, who is stepping down in the fall, is now being shaped around this issue.

The China-Japan rivalry tends to reveal the more muscular side of China's "peaceful rise,'' one that Americans rarely glimpse. In Vietnam, senior foreign policy officials recounted what happened when the Japanese came courting to gain Vietnam's backing for a resolution to give them permanent membership in the U.N. Security Council, a key goal of Japan's foreign policy. Japan is Vietnam's largest aid donor and a major source of foreign investment.

China and Vietnam have a long and stormy history as neighbors, including wars that go back centuries and -- more recently -- a brief invasion in 1979 that ended in defeat for the Chinese. Relations these days are relatively good, however, fed by growing trade, heavily in China's favor.

Hu, in his role as leader of the Chinese Communist Party, sent a special envoy to talk to the leadership of the ruling Vietnamese Communist Party. Sometimes, a Vietnamese official told me, the Chinese can be very indirect. Not this time. The message was simple: "Don't do it!'' The ``or else'' was left unspoken.

The Vietnamese compromised, supporting Japan's membership but refusing to co-sponsor the resolution. China was not pleased, but apparently accepted it.

For the Vietnamese, a senior official explained, they must engage in a "lot of fine balancing.'' Vietnam "can't stop engaging China'' but wants to make sure China becomes a "predictable'' power.

In Washington, when the cloud of rhetoric clears, that formula pretty much sums up the reality of U.S.-China relations, too.

We hardly needed the 30th anniversary of the Vietnam War's end to remind us of that war. Iraq provides daily reminders, prompting frequent comparisons to Vietnam. While many of the analogies are misplaced, looking back at America's intervention in Vietnam can be valuable.

The major challenge now facing the United States in Iraq is to establish a stable and powerful indigenous military to provide a secure environment for nation-building.

The U.S. Army's initial unwillingness to integrate South Vietnamese soldiers into its military plans--and its later inability to motivate the indigenous troops to take over the fighting--tells us what to avoid in Iraq.

The old Iraqi army fell apart in April 2003 as American soldiers marched on Baghdad. As the insurgency grew and American casualties mounted, the coalition forces started putting Iraq's army together again. Many of the same soldiers came back to sign up--it was only at the higher levels that Baathist officers were purged. Both Iraq and the United States have an interest in strengthening a purely Iraqi force.

Still some lessons

President Bush calls the comparison of Iraq with Vietnam a "false analogy" and accuses those who use it of sending the wrong message to the enemy and to the troops. Likewise, Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., calls the analogy "wrong, disturbing and dangerous."

In fact, Vietnam does not make for a good comparison with Iraq--but the differences are informative. The most striking difference between the two situations is in the sequence of war and nation-building. In Vietnam, the United States attempted nation-building under South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem's administration for nearly a decade before intervening directly with ground troops; in Iraq, a short and overwhelming display of force preceded nation-building. Moreover, the Americans were facing a much stronger adversary--including an organized army--in Vietnam.

Beginning in 1969, the Nixon administration implemented its policy of "Vietnamization," withdrawing U.S. troops while simultaneously turning over to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam the fighting and the pacification efforts. By 1973, the South Vietnamese army was the strongest in Southeast Asia, boasting more than 1 million soldiers and toting the most advanced weaponry, thanks to U.S. Army programs such as Enhance and Enhance Plus. However, unimpressive performances during a joint incursion into Cambodia and the 1972 spring offensive testified otherwise. Finally, on April 30, 1975, Saigon fell to the communists. Where did Vietnamization go wrong?

From the entry of American ground forces in 1965, South Vietnamese forces were made to feel marginalized in defending South Vietnam. This was mainly due to the U.S. Army's belief in 1965-69 that the South Vietnamese troops were essentially irrelevant to victory or defeat. Not only were the soldiers equipped with inferior weapons, underpaid and given poor housing compared to their American counterparts, but they also were relegated to so-called pacification missions.

U.S. soldiers had more respect for their enemies from the North than for their allies in the South. Training and communication were beset with linguistic, social and cultural barriers. By the time South Vietnamese soldiers started replacing U.S. soldiers in 1969, it was too late to induce them to adopt what had come to be regarded as U.S. strategic goals, rather than South Vietnamese ones.

It's not too late

Now, in Iraq, a window of opportunity is still open for Americans. According to Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the United States wasted the whole first year after the invasion in halfhearted attempts to create effective Iraqi military and police forces. The bulk of the army is made up of soldiers who were fighting Americans a few months ago. Ethnic and religious divisions among the men, and their legacy of service under an autocrat, make it difficult for them to attain modern professional military standards. However, the Iraqi people are much less distrustful of the Iraqi army than they are of occupying U.S. forces.

The Multinational Security Transition Command, set up late last year, must focus on the Iraqi army's esprit de corps. It is not too late to incorporate and integrate Iraqi forces in strategic planning and operations so that they have a stake in securing a stable Iraq. Otherwise, the Iraqi army will soon be overwhelmed by the size and hostility of a growing insurgency.

The Vietnam analogy has too often been deployed in times of political conflict in the United States. But the comparison can be useful. If we learn the right lessons from the mistakes in Vietnam, we need not be condemned to repeat them in Iraq.