On 7 October 2003, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), at the 9th ASEAN Summit, formally proposed the establishment of a security, economic, and socio-cultural community.As will be demonstrated, the proposal to erect these three pillars reflects the academic literature on the concept of a “security community” and the requirement that such a community can only exist when the states of the community no longer envisage war as a foreseeable possibility.In order to ensure such behaviour however, it is necessary for Southeast Asia to develop the kind of structures, norms, values, and sense of community that have been witnessed in the European Union (EU). Given the ethnic, religious, and political diversity of the region, achieving this end will be no easy feat. While Southeast Asia, because of this diversity, suffers from destabilizing dynamics in several of its countries, no ASEAN member is as unstable and challenging to ASEAN's goals as Myanmar.

Recent events, such as the violent crackdown against protesting monks in 2007, the Myanmar Government's poor response to the humanitarian crisis that followed Cyclone Nargis in 2008, and the trial of Aung San Suu Kyi in connection with an “alleged” breach of house arrest rules in 2009, have only served to reinforce international concern about the crisis in governance that Myanmar faces. In the context of ASEAN, the challenge of Myanmar has also been highlighted through a sustained and sometimes brutal critique of the inability of the Association to address and overcome the excessive degree of human insecurity throughout the country (and beyond) together with its transnational consequences. While such criticism has come from all quarters including Western governments and scholars, it has been strongest from the press, human rights activists, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and a small, but vocal group of parliamentarians within ASEAN itself. The continued inability of ASEAN to resolve the crisis in Myanmar has added fuel to more broad sweeping derision over the failure to either mitigate significantly, or resolve, a broad range of traditional and non-traditional security challenges. More specifically, concern over ASEAN's acceptance of Myanmar as a member state and its continued support for the junta in power has also damaged ASEAN's stature as a diplomatic community on the world stage.

This chapter seeks to lay the groundwork for a deeper understanding of the factors contributing to instability in Myanmar and thereby ASEAN's security community project. Interdependent with this is an analysis of the “domestic” consequences of instability and the prospects for change. The analysis is further designed to provide some understanding of the linkages between history, instability, ethnic conflict, and human rights abuse within the country. The necessity of this approach also arises from, and is complemented by, the conceptual framework in the previous chapter, which discussed the need for each member of a potential security community to consolidate internally. The successful internal consolidation of Myanmar, in addition to freeing the resources of the state for the purpose of regional integration, would assist in removing any destabilizing transnational factors that have the potential to compromise the comprehensive security of Southeast Asia. Furthermore, the deliberation by this chapter of the internal dynamics of the state, together with the perceptions and actions of its leadership, provides an important understanding of the “interests” of the state “without which, no theory of international relations can be adequate”. Finally, the analysis of Myanmar's internal security environment provides an important background to an assessment (in the final chapter) of the extent to which Myanmar presents an obstacle (both materially and normatively) to ASEAN's security community project.

BURMESE HISTORY AND ITS CONSEQUENCES — AN OVERVIEW

Broadly speaking, Myanmar underwent three historical phases in its embryonic unification as a nation state. In the first phase, parts of Myanmar were inhabited by small settlements as far back as 11,000 years ago. These palaeolithic and pro-neolithic groups settled, in the very least, along the Irrawaddy Valley and the eastern part of the present-day Shan State. In the second phase, and between the first century BC and the ninth century AD, the Pyu, speakers of the Tibeto-Burman languages and followers of Sarvastivada Buddhism, established city-kingdoms at Halingyi, Mongamo, Sri Ksetra, and Binnaka. By the eighth century, Pye, the former capital of the Pyu, had fallen to the Mons, and in the ninth century, the Pyu disappeared from historical records as a discrete people.

With the passing of time, the AIPMC's (ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus's) analysis that Myanmar would continue to affect ASEAN both regionally and internationally has proved accurate. While the chairmanship issue forced the evolution of ASEAN towards more open engagement with (and criticism of) the internal affairs of Myanmar, such developments did not result in any marked improvement in the political conditions within the country and, moreover, ASEAN's tougher stance did not succeed in shielding the Association from international pressure. As will be demonstrated, ASEAN's experiment in “enhanced interaction” further isolated ASEAN's relations with Myanmar and weakened any ascertainable “collective identity” by raising tensions between the progressive and conservative members of the ASEAN elite. As had been feared by some regional policy-makers, Myanmar increasingly turned towards other nations — such as China, India, Russia, and North Korea — for diplomatic, military, and economic support. In the process of strengthening its bilateral relationships with extraregional actors, the SPDC seemed to have paid even less regard to the interests of ASEAN. The manner by which ASEAN attempted to respond to this conundrum and the continued consequences for the Association's modus operandi form the subject of analysis below. The section that follows examines the regional and international implications of September 2007 when thousands of Buddhist monks led protests against the junta in the streets of Yangon (Rangoon) — herein referred to as the “Saffron Revolution”.

THE FRAGMENTATION OF CONSENSUS: RESPONDING THROUGH CRITICAL DISENGAGEMENT?

In the wake of the announcement that Myanmar would be abdicating its chairmanship of ASEAN, both the United States and the European Union (EU) almost immediately indicated that they expected more from both Myanmar and ASEAN, and the AIPMC renewed its call for either the suspension or expulsion of Myanmar from ASEAN. During the first ASEAN meeting with the United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (September 2005). Rice singled out Myanmar's foreign minister and criticized the continuation of political repression in the country, arguing that Myanmar was “out of step with the world”. Then, at a November 2005 APEC leaders’ summit, Rice again attacked Myanmar “as one of the worst regimes in the world” and then set her sights on ASEAN for failing to speak adequately out about and address human rights abuses in the country.

Chapter 1 outlined the major conceptual aspects necessary to the classification of a security community. In building on these considerations, the present chapter develops an understanding of the key processes behind the emergence of a security community. The chapter also seeks to discern how various domestic, material, and ideational factors interrelate with one another and potentially contribute to integration and the formation of a stable peace. Understanding the processes and pathways behind security community formation not only equips the analyst with an ability to foresee many of the obstacles to security community formation, but can also aid the development of an understanding, in later chapters, of the most efficient and effective approach to resolving any possible obstacles to realizing the goal of a security community. The likelihood of ASEAN successfully responding to these obstacles is a separate issue and one that will be addressed in the final chapter of this study (see Chapter 8).

NORMS AND THE COLLECTIVE IDENTITY OF THE STATE — THE CAUSATION BEHIND COOPERATION AND PEACE?

For the purpose of this investigation, the conceptual framework follows the second wave literature on norms with a primary focus on the ability of norms to affect “state behaviour via domestic political processes”. This branch of the literature seeks to ascertain the domestic salience of transnational norms via an examination of “changes in domestic discourses, national institutions, and state policies”. The question of who instigates these “changes” is examined through (and partially answered by) various social theories on structure and agency. Agents are the actors in politics who have the power to exercise and display choice, reflexivity, learning, and transformative capacity. While the central actor has traditionally been seen as the state (see below), recent literature has broadened the concept to include non-state actors such as international organizations, non-governmental organizations, transnational social movements, private economic actors, and epistemic communities (including civil society). Structure, by contrast, is the structured environment under which the agents act. The structure of a society, of a state, of a collectivity of states (for example, ASEAN), or of an international order is determined by the examined entity's ascertainable (or diverging) norms and identity (the ideational determinants of structure), together with its material capacities and institutions.

In order to assess the likely challenges that ASEAN will need to overcome to achieve its stated goals, this chapter develops a security community framework in a manner that is relevant to the international relations of Southeast Asia. This framework provides strong and clearly defined benchmarks for assessing the existence of a security community in a manner that clearly explains the primary obstacles to regional community building and helps develop policy-relevant insights concerning how best to overcome such obstacles. Undertaking this approach is important because, while the concept of a security community is a specialist term within scholarly literature, its “definition and usage must be convincing in its own right”. As Laurie Nathan contends, poor usage of the term in some of the recent literature has stripped the concept of any specific meaning. Furthermore, if the key proposition of security community literature can be empirically tested, applied, and accepted as a general theory, then there is the possibility of the concept gaining additional relevance as a policy goal (normative project) by “governments, international organisations, social movements and other relevant bodies throughout the world”. Therefore, while this chapter focuses on what is necessary for a coherent definition of a security community that is relevant to the ASEAN proposal, the next chapter also explains some of the major processes behind the emergence of a security community. Such an approach has the benefit of providing policy-makers, scholars, and students with some wide-ranging insights on the types of strategies to be implemented in the future to support the ASEAN's goals. The conceptual foundations of these two chapters will then be applied and tested in the empirical chapters that follow.

THE ASEAN PROPOSAL AND CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONS

The emergence of a “security community” as a conceptual framework is largely accredited to the work of Karl Deutsch and his associates back in 1957. While some have claimed that this was the first substantive challenge to the realist paradigm, the manner in which Deutsch focused on the avoidance of interstate war implied a more eclectic framework with the opportunity to accept some of the contentions of the realist paradigm. Deutsch asserted that a security community could only exist where there are “dependable expectations of peaceful change”.

This study has sought to analyse the feasibility of ASEAN's security community project in a manner that will constructively delineate how to overcome the most significant obstacles to security community formation in Southeast Asia. The crisis in Myanmar has now escalated to a point where both ASEAN's cohesion and its stature as a diplomatic community have been seriously challenged. For Myanmar to become a part of a collective Southeast Asian security community, ASEAN will need to be able to assist it in what the study has referred to as a process of internal consolidation. In turn, Myanmar will need to cooperate with ASEAN and the international community by accepting this assistance and abiding by the principles of its new constitution in a manner that protects the welfare and human rights of its people. The achievement of this state of affairs will of necessity require the SPDC to allow greater political pluralism, including an active role for the National League for Democracy (NLD). Full reconciliation is unlikely to be achieved until the SPDC also allows for Aung San Suu Kyi's participation in domestic politics. The willingness of the SPDC to entrust ASEAN with an active role to help facilitate and aid political reform in Myanmar would evidence a common “we-feeling” and sense of reciprocity that is necessary to a security community.

While the completion of the national convention may have in part been a response to regional and international pressure, ASEAN has not yet been able to formulate policies that have tangibly addressed the causes of instability and human rights abuse in Myanmar. To date, the only concrete achievements concerning the consequences of domestic instability have been outside the ASEAN framework and concern a reduction in opium production (the United Nations in cooperation with the SPDC) and a temporary stay in cross-border armed skirmishes (the initiative of Thailand). In practice, part of the reason for ASEAN's failure lies in the fact that constructive engagement, as traditionally articulated by ASEAN, had translated into silently condoning the policies and practices of the ASEAN governments — no matter how good or bad, humane or inhumane, they are. In principle, if pressure was applied, it was done at the sidelines of ASEAN meetings through the practice of quiet diplomacy where there would not be a loss of face.

In spite of Myanmar's “in principle” support for a security community, the method of rule by the country's military regime (and the domestic instability that is a consequence of it) presents a direct challenge to the ability of Southeast Asia countries to integrate into an ASEAN style security community. This is because the achievement of the proclaimed “security community”, along with the level of integration necessary for it, is beholden to the nature of interstate relations within the organization. These interstate relations are challenged, both directly and indirectly, at two levels by the situation in Myanmar. At one level, both traditional and non-traditional security threats challenge the region's security architecture and the potential formation of a security community. At another level, Myanmar challenges elite-level cohesion (collective identity formation) and the operative norms of ASEAN (such as non-interference). This chapter, in dealing with the first level of analysis, focuses on two interdependent issues. The first issue for consideration is how Myanmar challenges the comprehensive security of Southeast Asia. The second issue investigated by the chapter is the manner in which various states — through their bilateral relationships with Myanmar — has enhanced and/or detracted from the security architecture of the region. In a complement to this approach, Chapters 5 to 7 focus primarily on the second level of analysis — the challenge of Myanmar to elite-level cohesion.

SPILLOVER EFFECTS: COMPREHENSIVE SECURITY CHALLENGES FOR ASEAN

Several issues of human security and transnational crime afflict ASEAN because of domestic instability, corruption, and poor state capacity in Myanmar. These non-traditional security issues have all been exacerbated by the long-term instability of Myanmar and they include the trafficking of narcotics, money laundering, the spread of HIV/AIDS, environmental degradation, the rise and flow of refugees, and the associated problem of human trafficking. Additionally, the particular issues of narcotics production, human trafficking, and money laundering are reflective of transnational, criminal communities that can operate across state boundaries. In the context of Myanmar, and in addition to the aforementioned factors, globalization has exacerbated the opportunity for, and the impact of, these transnational criminal activities.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, the onset of the “Saffron Revolution” occurred just two months before ASEAN's new charter was to be presented to the region and the world. The Myanmar Government's violent crackdown on monks and protesters seriously impeded what had been intended as a celebration of ASEAN's evolution, including the downing of a new era of intramural relations and institutionalization for the organization. Then, in May 2008, Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar and the SPDC's poor response to the tragedy once again fell under the spotlight of international attention. Despite the continuation of both structural and ideational weaknesses within ASEAN that have previously been highlighted, these developments temporarily regalvanized ASEAN cohesion, contributing to the development of a new formula for functional cooperation in response to the Myanmar crisis. Rather than continue to push the boundaries of what the more authoritarian members of ASEAN were prepared to agree on, ASEAN focused on mediating between Myanmar and the international community in the delivery of aid, a role that simultaneously satisfied international expectations whilst delivering tangible benefits to the people affected by the cyclone. Meanwhile, the SPDC announced that it had completed drafting a new constitution to implement “disciplined democracy” and that it would be holding a referendum to determine whether it should be adopted in May 2008 — just days after Cyclone Nargis had struck with devastating effect. The new constitution has been largely condemned by the media, regional scholars, and foreign governments. Moreover, since the completion of ASEAN's humanitarian role in August 2008, the country has largely fallen from regional and international attention.

Given these developments, this analysis questions the extent to which ASEAN's institutions can be reformed before its Myanmar crisis is resolved. As previous chapters have demonstrated, the Myanmar crisis has not only challenged the comprehensive security of ASEAN, but has also significantly impeded any regionwide sense of collective identity. Therefore, the first section of the chapter reviews ASEAN's efforts to implement greater political and security cooperation and integration in the absence of a significant degree of “community”. The second section reviews the positive developments surrounding ASEAN's response to Cyclone Nargis.

Singapore gained self-government in 1959. In the first General Election, the People's Action Party (PAP) won 43 out of 51 seats, and Lee Kuan Yew became Singapore's first Prime Minister. The next few years saw an intense struggle within the party as leftist elements tried to seize control of it from the moderates, led by Lee. Externally, the PAP faced a threat from the Malayan Communist Party. Even as this dual struggle — one within the PAP and one outside it — was on, Malayan Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, speaking on 27 May 1961, proposed merger between the Federation of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak, North Borneo and Brunei. The PAP favoured Singapore's independence through merger with the Federation, but the pro-Communists within the party opposed merger because “communist subversion, disguised for the moment as an anti-colonial struggle, would not only lose its raison d'etre but also become vulnerable to suppression by the anti-communist national government in Kuala Lumpur controlling internal security.”

In July 1961, the PAP narrowly survived a vote of confidence in the Legislative Assembly when 27 members voted for the government and 24, including 13 of the PAP's left-wing members, either abstained from voting or voted against the motion of confidence. The thirteen PAP assemblymen were expelled from the party and, led by Lee Siew Choh and Lim Chin Siong, went on to form the opposition Barisan Sosialis (Socialist Front) in August 1961. A referendum on the terms of the merger held in Singapore on 1 September 1962 saw overwhelming support for it.

Singapore declared independence, even before the formation of Malaysia, on 31 August 1963. The Federation of Malaysia, consisting of Malaya, Singapore, Sarawak and North Borneo (renamed Sabah), was formed soon after, on 16 September 1963. Brunei stayed out. Indonesia, which considered Malaysia to be a neo-colonial plot directed against it, responded violently in January 1963. It declared “Confrontation”, a policy of armed infiltration, subversion and sabotage — hostilities short of all-out war — against Malaya and Singapore to prevent the formation of Malaysia and, later, to undermine the Federation.

In 1963, Lim Kim San stepped down from the Housing Development Board (HDB) chairmanship only to step up politically. Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew had asked him to run in the General Election that year. Unlike the 1959 elections, which Lim had declined to contest, he agreed this time because he did not owe banks any money, there was someone who could run his family business, and he was convinced by the PAP's leadership's argument that corrupt politicians should not be allowed to decide Singapore's future. Lim ran, and won the Cairnhill constituency. Two ministers, Kenny Byrne and Tan Kia Gan, lost their seats. Lim told Lee that he did not want to hold political office because he had his work to attend to. But the party was short of people, and he was made Minister for National Development. He could not refuse. Moreover, he was told that his ministerial work was going to be temporary. As it turned out, he would hold a variety of ministerial portfolios for seventeen years.

MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

When Tan Kia Gan, the National Development Minister under whom Lim had served, lost his seat, Tan was appointed HDB Chairman in a reversal of places with Lim. Lim said that he would have supported Tan for the chairman's job because he knew his job and could work well. It is not that Lim had no reservations about Tan. He recalled an occasion when the minister tried to interfere with him and get him to agree to one of his friends coming in as a tenderer and give him a special concession. Tan brought Lim to lunch on a false pretext and he met some people. Lim made his displeasure clear. There was another instance when Tan wanted him to award a certain contract. Lim disagreed and told Tan that, as minister, he had the right to overrule him. However, “it never occurred to me that he was up to anything fishy”. Perhaps he was only trying to help a friend. So Lim would have recommended him for the HDB chairmanship because “when I am Minister and he is Chairman, there's no reason why I cannot control him if I wanted to.”

LIM KIM SAN

30 November 1916 – 20 July 2006

Parents: Lim Choon Huat and Wee Geok Khuan

Siblings: Lim Yan Siew, Lim Yan Lian, Lim Cheng Siong, Lim Yan Swee, and Lim Yan Leng.

Wife: Pang Gek Kim

Children: Lim Eng Tin (m. Lee Weng Yan), Lim Eng Hong (m. Ee Kean Leong), Lim Kiat Seng (m. Pauline Lim Mee Goh), Lim Siu Tin (m. Jimmy Beng Kian Siew), Lim Kiat Beng (m. Linda Lee), and Lim Siu Horng (m. Tay Puan Siong).

Grandchildren: Lee Yu Chuan (m. Amy Ng Ka Yin), Lee Yu Ching (m. Wee Seng Hong), Ee Kuo-Ren (m. Natalie Ho Chin Yee), Ee Yuen-Ling, Lim Ee Ming, Beng Teck Liang (m. Connie Yang), Beng Li-Siier (m. Shashi Kumar), Beng Li-Hsien, Jonathan Lim (m. Cony Ee), Anthony Ee-Li Lim (m. Jean Chang), and Adrian Tay (m. Leslie Tay).

Great-Grandchildren: Samuel Wee Rui Chang, Matthew Wee Rui Jie, Bradley Beng, Brandon Beng, Annalisa Wei-Ling Lim, Isabella Hui-Ling Lim, Alexander Jie-Hao Lim, and Joshua Zu-Hui Lim.

Lim Kim San, independent Singapore's first Minister for Finance, and Goh Keng Swee, its first Minister for the Interior and Defence, switched portfolios in August 1967. The switch was natural given that, in Lim's own words, among the most important objectives of sovereign Singapore were the need to build a defence capability, and the need to turn Singapore into an industrialized nation. What made his transfer to the Defence Ministry particularly important was the context in which it occurred: Britain's decision to withdraw militarily from East of Suez, a move that imperilled the security of fledgling Singapore.

The British Defence White Paper published in July 1967 announced the intention to reduce forces in Southeast Asia by half by 1970/71, and to withdraw completely by the middle of the 1970s. However, the British economy was in such a parlous state that the pound sterling was devalued in November 1967. Now, London's policy was to put British economic interests ahead of its global commitments. The consequences of that shift were soon apparent in the announcement of an accelerated timetable for military retrenchment. The British government declared in January 1968 that its forces would withdraw from East of Suez by the end of 1971.

Singapore had been building its defence forces since 1965. However, Britain's accelerated plans for withdrawal made it necessary for the republic to draw up an entirely new plan. A large and rapid increase in its defence expenditure became necessary to build up the capabilities of the army, the navy and the air force to provide credible security. The expansion of the defence forces between 1968 and 1971 would be a costly undertaking. The annual cost in cash terms would reach about 10 per cent of Singapore's existing gross national product, or more than S$300 million a year. A series of taxes was proposed in 1968 to meet the greater cost of defence. Four were entirely new taxes, while three involved increases or changes in existing rates of taxes.

Lim Kim San was born into a conservative Peranakan Chinese family in Singapore on 30 November 1916, the eldest son among six children of Lim Choon Huat and Wee Geok Khuan. His ancestry was interesting. When the British colonized Malaya and Singapore, the Peranakan Chinese — local-born and permanently-settled Chinese who spoke Malay or a local language at home and who were culturally more assimilated into Southeast Asian society than the fresh arrivals from China — came to be known as the Straits Chinese. This name reflected the fact of their residence in the Straits Settlements that were formed when Penang, Singapore and Malacca were placed under a single administration in 1826. Not all Straits-born Chinese were Peranakan, but the Peranakan Chinese were born locally. Defined, and defining themselves, as Straits Chinese, the elite of Chinese society possessed certain characteristics: Their families had been living in the region in general, and in the Straits Settlements in particular, for generations; they had become British subjects within the empire; they had generally retained their clan and dialect-group links, but tended to speak English and send their children for an English education to one of the prestigious local private schools; and they ran a network of business organizations that were influential in the settlements.

Lim's family had been out of China for three to four generations. His mother's family came from Bengkalis; her father, uncles and one of her brothers were Kapitan China in Bengkalis. The title of Kapitan China (or Cina) is believed to have originated in the Portuguese who ruled Malacca after the defeat of the Malacca Sultanate. They continued the sultanate's system of administering foreign traders in Malacca — Indian, Arab, Javanese or Chinese — through a headman that the community chose and who was then confirmed by the ruler. Kapitan Cina, who enjoyed the powers of a typical Malay chief, had to keep the peace, administer civil and criminal law, and collect tax occasionally.

Lim Kim San was Minister for Education from 1970 to 1972. From 1971 to 1978, he was Chairman of the Public Utilities Board. During this period, he became Singapore's first Minister for the Environment in 1972, and stayed there till 1975. He was Minister for National Development and Communications from 1975 to 1978, and Minister for National Development from 1978 to 1979. He returned to the Ministry of the Environment in 1979 and stayed there till 1981. He was also Chairman of the Board of Trustees of NTUC Welcome Consumers’ Cooperative Ltd. in 1973; Chairman of the Port of Singapore Authority (PSA) from 1979 to 1994; Managing Director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore from 1981 to 1982; and Chairman of the Council of Presidential Advisers from 1992 to 2003. In his foray into the private sector, Lim became Executive Chairman of Singapore Press Holdings in 1988. He retained that post until 2002, when he became the group's Senior Adviser and helped guide the company until he retired in 2005. He contributed to Singapore's governance, its economy and its media in these diverse fields.

EDUCATION

By early 1971, Singapore had overcome, to a large extent, quantitative needs in the field of education. A place in school was ensured for every child of school-going age; indeed, 98 per cent of those in this age group were in school. Yet, the key question was what kind of education would decide whether Singapore's small population of two million would be a valuable asset or a severe handicap.

Speaking at the opening of a Singapore Teachers’ Union seminar, Lim noted that the need earlier on had been to expand available educational facilities fast enough to provide a place for every child of school-going age. Singapore was in a position now to allow more flexibility in allowing individual children to proceed at a pace more suited to their abilities.