Can ASEAN Afford to Establish a Highly Demanding or Deliberately Loose Criteria-based Roadmap for Timor-Leste’s Accension?
ASEAN leaders have in-principle agreed to admit Timor-Leste. But this admission is conditioned upon Timor-Leste successfully fulfilling a criteria-based roadmap. This objective roadmap has not yet been drafted, let alone put up for adoption. As such, how should ASEAN create this roadmap? Can ASEAN afford to make the roadmap a demanding one? Or ASEAN should craft the roadmap in a loose fashion to allow Timor-Leste rapid entry?Taking into consideration of geopolitical and domestic factors surrounding ASEAN, this article argues that it will be wiser for ASEAN to adopt a 'nuanced' roadmap, one that is not too demanding yet not too loose. Such a roadmap will benefit ASEAN to the greatest extent.
The way in which ASEAN chooses to formulate the criteria-based roadmap for Timor-Leste bears important implications towards its security.
Timor-Leste’s Membership Bid to Join ASEAN
After more than a decade since Timor-Leste first applied to join ASEAN, its membership bid has finally gain significant progress.
At the 40th and 41st ASEAN summit which took place in Phnom Penh from 10-13 November 2022, ASEAN leaders have in-principal agreed to admit Timor-Leste as the 11th member. However, the realisation of Timor-Leste’s long-standing dream to gain full membership in ASEAN solely depends on its capability to fulfil the criteria-based roadmap.
As the criteria-based road has yet to be finalized by the ASEAN coordinating council and put up for formal adoption by ASEAN member states, such breeds important questions. How should the criteria-based roadmap be formulated? Should ASEAN establish a rigorous roadmap to maximise Timor-Leste’s readiness before granting Dili full entry? Otherwise, should ASEAN adopt a deliberately loose roadmap such that Timor-Leste can fulfil the criteria at ease and rapidly gain entry to ASEAN?
Taking into consideration a host of geopolitical and domestic factors, this commentary argues that ASEAN cannot afford to adopt an excessively demanding nor deliberately loose criteria-based roadmap. Instead, it will be much wiser for ASEAN to adopt a nuanced roadmap; a subtle one that is neither too demanding nor loose.
An Intensifying Contest for Strategic Influence in Timor-Leste
As the balance of power shifts eastwards from the Atlantic towards the Indo-Pacific, the appeal of Timor-Leste as a valuable geostrategic chess piece has increased exponentially. Major powers have grown increasingly interested to engage or perhaps ‘cajole’ Timor-Leste.
Then-Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi concluded his Pacific tour by visiting Timor-Leste which saw both countries inking multiple deals in air services, post-pandemic recovery, healthcare, telecommunication, and deepening of cooperation for the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Wang Yi even went as far to propose a regional security pact between the two countries. Nevertheless, these signals Beijing’s yearn to bring Timor-Leste into its own orbit. To counter China, Australia is forced to strengthen its own ties with Timor-Leste. More than two months after Wang Yi’s visit, Canberra signed a new defence cooperation agreement (DCA) with Timor-Leste, which many analysts hail as a significant elevation of Australia-Timor-Leste bilateral relationship.
This zero-sum contest for strategic influence is likely to intensify given the growing mutual suspicions between major powers. Likewise, Timor-Leste is a young state with a prime focus on development which it cannot hope to achieve without the aid of major powers. Hence, the likelihood of Timor-Leste being unintentionally swept into the respective sphere of influences of these external powers cannot be underestimated. If it happens, there will be major security threats for ASEAN given that external powers have established strategic footholds within the southeast Asian region.
To allay these geopolitical concerns, Timor-Leste’s inclusion cannot be deferred any further. By that, it seems ASEAN should adopt a deliberately ‘loose’ criteria-based roadmap, one with criteria that Timor-Leste can easily fulfil and quickly enter ASEAN. However, Timor-Leste’s swift entry will pose serious challenges for ASEAN.
Timor-Leste’s Current Conditions: Ready for ASEAN Membership?
Currently, Timor-Leste has yet to steer its economy away from oil dependence while its economy is mainly import-oriented. In addition, problems of weak infrastructure connectivity still persist despite the Timorese government efforts over the years to improve its domestic conditions. These limitations will jeopardise the realisation of a stronger and highly integrated ASEAN Community.
It is widely believed that Timor-Leste lacks regional-based strategic autonomy. Even with zero Chinese loans and rejection of any possible military-related cooperation with China, Timor-Leste’s ability to pursue regional interests without external influence can be reasonably doubted as China is an important trading partner, contributor of foreign aid and critical infrastructure financer to Timor-Leste. This renders Timor-Leste vulnerable towards China’s wedging strategies to divide ASEAN especially in the domain of traditional security.
Analysts also questioned Timor-Leste’s capability to host the various ASEAN meetings at different levels and Timor-Leste’s progress made so far in harmonizing its institutional law and regulations to align with ASEAN’s legally binding conventions and treaties.
From this angle, Timor-Leste is by no means ready in assuming full ASEAN membership and it appears that ASEAN should adopt a highly rigorous roadmap, one that contains stringent criteria to ensure that Timor-Leste is fully ready before becoming a full member of ASEAN. But a highly rigorous roadmap is not without risks. It might frustrate Timor-Leste’s hope to join ASEAN. Given the possibility of Timor-Leste embracing China due to the lack of progress in its ASEAN membership bid, ASEAN cannot afford to take this gamble by establishing a rigorous roadmap.
If both highly rigorous and deliberately loose criteria-based roadmap are ill-suited to ASEAN’s current circumstance, how should ASEAN formulate Timor-Leste’s roadmap?
A ‘Nuanced’ Version of the Criteria-Based Roadmap is Needed
As ASEAN faces multiple challenges, it will be prudent to consider the severity of them. No doubt that ensuring Timor-Leste readiness to join ASEAN is crucial, but the most pressing matter to ASEAN is to allay the geopolitical threats surrounding Timor-Leste’s inclusion as this gravely concerns the core of its security.
Given this key priority, it will be wiser for ASEAN to propose a nuanced roadmap, one that is not too demanding such that it ensures that Timor-Leste can gain timely entry into ASEAN and at the same time sufficiently rigorous to be able to maximise Timor-Leste’s readiness before joining ASEAN. In this way, ASEAN’s geopolitical concerns can be assuaged while the negative ramifications caused by Timor-Leste’s low level of readiness can be minimized.
This roadmap should preferably include attainable short- or medium-term criteria instead of highly demanding long-term criteria. The criteria within the roadmap should be formulated closely around what Timor-Leste could maximally achieve based on their current level of development. Criteria that tacitly assumes Timor-Leste’s level of development to be on par with fellow ASEAN member states and expects Dili to achieve unrealistic goals within short time frames should be avoided.
A nuanced criteria-based roadmap might be difficult to achieve. But with Timor-Leste as an observer state, such a task is feasible. ASEAN may capitalize on upcoming summits and informal meetings to put forth iterations of the criteria-based road map. From this, ASEAN can gauge on whether its proposed roadmap is in fact ‘well-balanced’ before tabling it for formal adoption.
On the other hand, such a roadmap might still raise concerns regarding Timor-Leste’s readiness to join ASEAN. It can be argued that such a roadmap can certainly bolster Timor-Leste’s readiness but does not necessarily guarantee that Timor-Leste is fully ready to join ASEAN. However, this is not a cause for great concern as there is ample space for catch-up development. ASEAN places emphasis on narrowing developmental gaps between fellow member states in order to boost ASEAN’s regional competitiveness. Once Timor-Leste has settled in, ASEAN alongside its external partners are well-prepared to augment its strategic autonomy and readiness to contribute meaningfully as a member through the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI) and other similar frameworks such as Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund (JAIF).
ASEAN must tread carefully in the formulation of the criteria-based roadmap for Timor-Leste. If done correctly, it will strengthen intra-regional integration and enhance ASEAN’s relevance in the increasingly complex security architecture. Otherwise, if done thoughtlessly, the structural integrity of ASEAN will be at great stake.
Pic Credit : ASEAN Secretariat/Kusuma Pandu Wijaya on Flickr
(The views expressed are those of the author and do not represent views of CESCUBE.)