Time for an Upgrade in ASEAN-Pakistan Relations?

Pakistan is seeking to upgrade its relationship with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to a full dialogue partnership, the country’s president said on April 19, according to local media reports.

President Mamnoon Hussain told a group of ASEAN ambassadors that a full dialogue partnership (FDP) with the regional grouping would further Islamabad’s efforts to strengthen political and economic ties with Southeast Asian states.

Per Article 44 of the ASEAN Charter, ASEAN can confer several formal statuses to external parties, including development partner, special observer, guest, sectoral dialogue partner, and full dialogue partner, which is considered the highest level. Pakistan has been a sectoral dialogue partner of ASEAN since 1997, when the inaugural meeting to discuss the terms for the establishment of dialogue relations was held in Islamabad.

Pakistan’s quest for a full dialogue partnership with ASEAN is not new. Indeed, Islamabad has tried since the 1990s to push for this, in part motivated by its diplomatic competition with India. New Delhi’s ties with ASEAN briskly moved from a sectoral dialogue partnership in 1992 to a full dialogue partnership by December 1995.

ASEAN, for its part, had initially been lukewarm to the idea, with a few members of the grouping expressing concerns about a full dialogue partnership with Pakistan. Arguments included the fact that Pakistan’s foreign policy orientation is more toward West Asia than East Asia; that admitting Islamabad would risk bringing the India-Pakistan rivalry into the Southeast Asian space; and that the country’s value was not as significant as that of India.

In his candid reflections published in a 2006 book, former ASEAN Secretary-General Rodolfo Severino characterized the first few joint sectoral cooperation meetings between ASEAN and Pakistan as “uneventful.” When he presided over the first meeting of the ASEAN-Pakistan Joint Sectoral Cooperation Committee (APJSCC) in Bali in February 1999, Severino commented in public remarks on the difficulty of developing ASEAN-Pakistan relations, especially following the Asian Financial Crisis in the late 1990s.

“[D]espite our enthusiasm and common efforts, I cannot be sanguine about the slow pace of development in the ASEAN-Pakistan Sectoral Dialogue,” Severino said at the time with a directness usually not heard in ASEAN fora.

“I believe we are quite familiar with the reasons: We are too far apart geographically. Our trade is small. Our politicians, government officials, and business people know little about each other,” he added.

Despite this, Pakistan’s growing influence in the Asian sphere has gradually been recognized, as evidenced by Islamabad’s admission to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 2004. Inclusion in the ARF was important for Pakistan, again in part due to the fact that India had been admitted in 1996. Islamabad was concerned that New Delhi would use the forum to bring up India-Pakistan and other regional issues and it would be left without a voice.

However, whether or not Pakistan will be conferred a full dialogue partnership with ASEAN remains to be seen. Thus far, both sides have continued their series of sectoral meetings, with the last APJSCC meeting held in 2011. As with other ASEAN partners, Pakistan has also appointed an ambassador to ASEAN, Mohammad Aquil Nadeem, who took up the post in Jakarta last year after presenting his credentials to ASEAN Secretary-General Le Luong Minh on December 1. During Nadeem’s meeting with Minh, he said he looked forward to working to further strengthen bilateral relations, especially in the economic realm. They also agreed that both sides were due for another APJSCC meeting in 2016.

President Hussain’s remarks at his April 19 meeting, which was attended by envoys from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam, was similarly focused on the economic rationale of upgrading ASEAN-Pakistan relations. Hussain noted that Pakistan’s trade with ASEAN states was far below its potential and urged investors and businessmen from ASEAN states to take advantage of investment policies offered by Pakistan in several areas, especially energy, infrastructure, and tourism.

But Hussain also highlighted Pakistan’s regional importance as well, especially what he claimed as Pakistan’s efforts to pave the way for peace in Afghanistan and contribute to regional economic development through efforts such as the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which he dubbed grandiosely as one of the century’s landmark projects.

The ASEAN diplomats present reportedly welcomed Pakistan’s interest in becoming a full dialogue partner and hoped that Islamabad’s application would be considered favorably to strengthen ties. But Pakistan’s optimism has been met with disappointment before. Just last year, Pakistani officials initially expressed hope that the country’s relationship with ASEAN would be upgraded during Malaysia’s chairmanship, with Islamabad even meeting Malaysian officials to make its interest clear. Yet Malaysia’s chairmanship came and went without that change. Though Pakistan clearly does enjoy the support of several ASEAN member states today and its diplomats hope that an upgrade is a matter of when rather than if, it is unclear how much longer it will have to wait for its quest to actually be successful.