Introduction

Abstract

In 1975, Indonesia invaded East Timor and, backed by its partners in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), forcibly annexed the territory, killing up to 182,000 people during its occupation. Three years later, in response to Vietnam’s toppling of Cambodia’s Pol Pot regime, ASEAN states pursued a proxy war against Hanoi and the new Cambodian government, championing the deposed Khmer Rouge in the United Nations (UN), hosting, re-arming and resupplying their guerrillas, manipulating foreign aid to fuel the war, and forming a new coalition government-in-exile to manoeuvre its clients back to power in Phnom Penh. After the Cold War, ASEAN states and state-linked business elites tried to export their capital and governance models to neighbouring states, bolstering authoritarianism in Burma and fuelling an ongoing civil war in Cambodia, culminating in the collapse of the coalition government there in 1997. ASEAN then imposed political conditions for Cambodia’s membership of the Association. Two years later, core ASEAN states promoted and joined a humanitarian intervention in East Timor. And, particularly since 2003, ASEAN has repeatedly sought to insert itself into Burma’s democratisation process.

ASEAN countries’ consistent adherence to this principle of non-interference is the key reason why no military conflict has broken out between any two ASEAN countries since the founding of ASEAN… Let us maintain it in the twenty-first century.

— S. Jayakumar, Singaporean Foreign Minister (1997)

Frankly, we have been interfering mercilessly in each other’s internal affairs for ages, from the very beginning.

— Bilahari Kausikan, Permanent Secretary, Singaporean Foreign Ministry (2008)