24 years after Cambodia became the tenth member of ASEAN, the geopolitical and economic organization of the Southeast Asian region has finally welcomed its eleventh member, namely East Timor. This was officially announced on the ASEAN website, followed by an in depth follow-up process on what steps can be taken to formalize and “welcome” East Timor as a brand new member.
East Timor gained independence from Indonesia only in 2002, which was then still called East Timor. Since gaining sovereignty, becoming an official a part of ASEAN has been one among the unstoppable desires of the Timor-Leste government.
“We really want to join ASEAN,” East Timorese ambassador to Cambodia Kupa Lopes told VOA on the sidelines of the annual ASEAN leaders’ summit. “So this means a lot to Timor-Leste and it means a lot to ASEAN,” he continued.
Ultimately, it was difficult for East Timor to acquire unanimous support for joining this group. Timor-Leste didn’t adopt its request on the ASEAN Foreign Ministers Summit in August.
Taking a step back, East Timorese President Jose Ramos-Horta also expressed his disappointment with East Timor on the Indonesian Foreign Policy Community in July. So there was a sentence that caught the President’s attention: “It seems that the trail to heaven is less complicated than reaching the ASEAN gate.”
At the time, two diplomatic issues were considered to be hindering East Timor from becoming a part of ASEAN. Firstly, can Timor-Leste afford the membership fees? Secondly, Dili is perceived as too near China.
East Timor’s application to hitch in 2011 caused great concern in Singapore. East Timor is taken into account a small country with relatively high levels of poverty. There is a fear that East Timor will turn out to be a burden and decelerate efforts to make the ASEAN Economic Community a reality.
Ambassador Lopes concluded that East Timor’s economy is “not that bad.” This is nice for Timor-Leste as ASEAN countries even have the potential to take part in this system for mutual profit.
From East Timor’s perspective, ASEAN membership means opening access to the ASEAN Economic Community for 1.37 Timorese. Conversely, East Timor will open its market to the 683 million people in ASEAN.
In terms of GDP, Timor-Leste’s economic growth was relatively normal before the political impasse of 2017–2018. This is evidenced by its increase to five.3%. in 2016.
This figure shows that Timor-Leste’s growth rate is comparable to that of several ASEAN countries. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) evaluation of ASEAN countries’ GDP growth between 2016 and 2018 also shows that Timor-Leste can “compete”. Indonesia grew by 5.1 percent, Malaysia by 5.0 percent, the Philippines by 6.6 percent, Vietnam by 6.6 percent and Thailand by 3.4 percent.
“Timor-Leste’s economy can be more resilient. We can diversify our activities – from oil and gas to agriculture and tourism,” Lopes said, citing VOA (12/11).
It ought to be noted that the Southeast Asian bloc, through the creation of the ASEAN Economic Community, “wants to construct a single market and production base to strengthen the implementation of existing economic initiatives, speed up regional integration in priority sectors, facilitate the movement of entrepreneurs, expert and talented personnel.”
East Timor’s efforts to hitch this regional family have been visible since 2012, when the country was still very young. During this time, Timor-Leste showed glimpses of its capability for regional cooperation by hosting several international diplomatic events.
One of them is the ASEAN Regional Forum Election Observer Mission in 2012 and the ADB/OECD Asia-Pacific Anti-Corruption Initiative in 2013. Nevertheless, Timor-Leste’s options are still being considered. Because it results from the embassy issue.
ASEAN countries set conditions that East Timor should have embassies in all member countries. As late as 2014, there have been only 4 recent embassies left in East Timor that would meet this requirement. It can’t be denied that that is an attempt by Timor-Leste to react quickly to further “seduce” this Southeast Asian regional family.
Indonesia’s role can be believed to be crucial for the admission of latest member East Timor. Last July, President Ramos-Horta conveyed on to the President of the Republic of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, that the country wants to hitch ASEAN when Indonesia becomes ASEAN Chair in 2023.
It was known then that Jokowi didn’t comment on Ramos-Horta’s request, only nodded and returned to the primary topic of debate in the shape of development cooperation in the sector of infrastructure, banking, telecommunications and the non-oil and gas sector.
It is taken into account natural that Jokowi is ultimately not allowed to make unilateral decisions. The unanimous decision of all members will determine and turn out to be the ultimate fate of East Timor.
Source: VOANews.com, AsiaFoundation.org, TheDiplomat.com, GoodNewsFromIndonesia.id
