The world can learn diplomatic lessons from Asean, East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta has said in a strongly worded rebuke to existing global power structures.
At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore on Saturday, Ramos-Horta, who leads the newest and 11th member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, argued that the bloc epitomised how dialogue could prevent conflict and yield dividends.
He acknowledged that Asean was “not heaven on earth”, achieving consensus was “frustratingly slow” and security challenges persisted, singling out Myanmar’s civil war.
Advertisement
“Nevertheless, in a world where bridges are being burned faster than they are built, Asean provides lessons on how sustained dialogue [and] engagement can safeguard against conflict and deliver shared benefits,” Ramos-Horta told delegates and officials at the defence forum.
“These are the thoughts of despair and hope that came to me as I watched the abysmal failure of global leadership resulting in the devastating wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, consequences of which reverberate across the world.”
He noted that Asean was not conceptualised in a tranquil period and that its success was not that it eliminated differences. “It did something more modest and perhaps more profound: it planted a banyan tree, and under its foliage leaders gathered and plotted the end of wars.”
Advertisement