Ambassador for ASEAN Affairs Scot Marciel
Press Availability
May 10, 2008
Singapore
I'm here in Singapore to lead the U.S. delegation to the U.S.-ASEAN Senior Dialogue meeting which concluded about an hour or two ago. We have these discussions annually; it's the first time for me to lead the U.S. delegation in my new role as Ambassador for ASEAN Affairs for the United States. We had a very good discussion reflecting the broad range of cooperation between the United States and ASEAN. We talked about ways we can continue to work together and expand our cooperation and overall move ahead with a very positive agenda that we have for the relationship. And with that I'll take your questions.
Q: How has ASEAN reacted to the crisis? What is your take on how ASEAN is reacting to the crisis in Myanmar?
A: Well, I think the ASEAN nations are reacting like most nations around the world: a great deal of sympathy for the victims of what is a terrible disaster. I think all of our hearts go out to the people who have been affected by this extraordinarily terrible disaster. And I think the ASEAN nations, and ASEAN as an institution – like most countries around the world, including the United States – our reaction is one of wanting to help and seeing if we can give assistance to the people who so desperately need it.
Q: Do you think the reaction has been rather weak – not pushing Myanmar enough?
A: I wouldn’t characterize it as weak. All of us share the same goal of trying to get help to the people who need it. And my impression is that the ASEAN countries have been trying to get assistance in directly and also talking to officials in Burma and encouraging them to grant access if that's possible.
Q: What more do you think ASEAN can do?
A: I think we all just need to keep trying to work with the Burmese government to get assistance and work with the government on getting authorizations to be able to bring in assistance. And we hope to get access for the international experts who best know how to use that assistance and can help the people of Burma and the government of Burma to make sure that the right people get assistance. So I don't think there's – I wouldn't call on ASEAN to do anything more than to continue what it's been doing to help.
Q: There have been calls, though, for the U.S. to conduct air drops without permission. Can you clarify this?
A: We have absolutely no intention of doing that. We are working with the Burmese authorities and we are hoping we can get their approval to bring in assistance.
Q: What's the U.S.' next move, then?
A: Well, to continue to talk to the Burmese authorities. We've already offered a good deal of assistance – 3.25 million dollars of assistance – that's our initial offer. We've also made it clear that we have some capabilities in the region. We have disaster relief teams – an expert team from USAID that's in Bangkok that's applied for visas that would like to go in and help do assessments and figure out the needs and offer some technical advice – very similar to what some of the U.N. agencies and some other governments have offered. So that offer is still on the table. We've offered other things. We have some ships in the region that just happen to be there, with helicopter capability and this sort of thing, and again that offer remains open, to be of help. So we'll continue to work with our friends in ASEAN, with the Burmese authorities to see if there's a way we can help get assistance to the people who need it.
Q: When will the approval come?
A: It's very hard to say. As you may have heard, we have now received approval to bring in one planeload of supplies in the next couple of days. We welcome the opportunity to move forward and deliver those supplies, and we hope that it will lead to further assistance from the United States.
Q: You mentioned that you don't think ASEAN could do more, but don't you think ASEAN could do more?
A: Well, I don't think I said that we believe ASEAN is in a position to do more. I think it's a matter of continuing to do what ASEAN has been doing, and what a lot of other countries have been doing and what the U.N. has been doing. All together, what we have been doing, including ASEAN, is offering assistance. And ASEAN has been very generous, and encouraging the authorities in Burma to be open and flexible and to grant access, not only to the assistance, but to the experts who can help make sure that assistance gets to the people who need it.
Q: What's the best way of engaging the junta – the military government?
A: Different governments have different relationships with that government. I think we all keep trying to use the communication opportunities we have with the authorities to just remind them, to reiterate our interest in helping, in providing assistance and trying to work with them. And I think that's what ASEAN nations have been doing and continue to do.
Q: And what if diplomacy doesn't work?
A: Well, I don't want to get into hypotheticals. I think really we're all committed to trying to work with the authorities in Burma because in the end they will have to agree to provide access, to allow access to experts and assistance. That's the way this has to work.
Q: France has argued that the U.N. has the power to intervene without any permission. To your knowledge, are there any legalities within the U.N. framework that apply?
A: I don't think I'm enough of an expert on the U.N. to say that. I would say that our focus continues to be on working with the Burmese authorities to get their approval for access.
Q: What's the U.S. perception of ASEAN? It's come under a lot of flak for its inability to influence Myanmar.
A: We think ASEAN is an important organization in Southeast Asia that's moving fairly well to strengthen itself, to promote a sense of community, to promote economic integration, and to play a larger role in Southeast Asia and the overall region. And that's why we care a lot about ASEAN and are increasing our own coordination with and cooperation with ASEAN. You know, I think it's always easy to be critical of any multilateral organization. You can always find things that this organization has or hasn't done. But the fact is that ASEAN has been useful in the region for a long time in encouraging peace and stability. It's moving ahead now with the passage of the Charter, which I think is a big step for ASEAN, and we certainly welcome it. It has very ambitious plans for economic integration; it's also been developing its socioeconomic, educational, and political security pillars of the community. So we applaud that. As far as influencing Burma goes, the government of Burma is not easily influenced. I think we all keep working together to try and encourage positive progress there.
Q: What is the biggest challenge for ASEAN going forward?
A: Well, I don't want to speak for ASEAN. But I would say that any regional organization, as it takes steps to implement very ambitious goals – and ASEAN's goals are extremely ambitious – it's always a little bit of a tradeoff. Countries have to make concessions in order to get the benefits of economic integration. It requires some compromise, and that's always a little bit difficult, and not just in ASEAN but anywhere. So I think that in general is a challenge. But ASEAN seems to have the political will to go ahead with it.
Q: You mentioned that ASEAN has ambitious goals. Which are the goals that the U.S. finds ambitious?
A: Well, I say ambitious in a positive sense, not in a critical sense. I'm not saying overly ambitious. Certainly the economic integration goal by 2015 is ambitious. I think it's very positive. It's a very worthwhile goal. An integrated ASEAN with a single market will be a potent economic player. For example, ASEAN collectively is our fourth-largest export market. That's huge. It's also a recipient of U.S. foreign investment, so it's a big economic player, and the more ASEAN can integrate economically, the more I think the people of ASEAN will benefit. So I think it's a very worthwhile goal, but it's a big challenge.
Q: The ASEAN Regional Forum will take place here in July. What are your priority areas?
A: We think there are a couple of areas that the ASEAN Regional Forum has been working on. One, there are efforts to streamline the Forum. There are efforts to try to move toward things like disaster relief exercises, to take some things that have been talked about in meetings and conference rooms and begin to implement them in terms of exercises and all sorts of things, sort of have more practical impact on the ground. It's also very useful, frankly, as a forum and a place to have discussions and talk about different issues that the region faces. So we look forward to general broad discussion on things such as non-traditional security threats, all the issues that ARF members face.
Q: As the first U.S. envoy to ASEAN, what will your priorities be?
A: Well, we have a very good relationship already with ASEAN. We have a large number of activities underway with ASEAN under the U.S.-ASEAN Enhanced Partnership and many of those activities are designed to support ASEAN's own goals. So for example we have any number of programs to support ASEAN's economic integration. My goals are to continue to expand cooperation, which is already very good, to increasingly work with ASEAN as an entity in addressing some of the issues in the region. And it's to work with ASEAN to make sure that the people of ASEAN and the people of the United States have a better idea of the relationship and the benefits of the U.S.-ASEAN relationship.
Q: What are the most challenging issues?
A: Well, there are a lot of issues and a lot of opportunities in the region. Certainly continuing to promote economic growth and development, and reducing poverty is huge. And the governments played a big role in that through its economic integration program, as well as working with us on APEC and the Doha Round of the WTO. But there are challenges certainly in education, health, the environment, energy security – all of these areas where ASEAN is doing a lot and we're working with ASEAN. So it's a very broad agenda.
Q: Are you going to push an even stronger line on Myanmar?
A: I think we look forward to continuing our conversation with ASEAN members about how we can, together, encourage Burma to move in a more positive direction, certainly.
Q: Does Myanmar care what the outside world thinks? People around the world are lining up to criticize their approach to this current crisis, and yet there appears to be no change from the regime and in fact they show no inclination over the years to pay any attention to what the outside world, particularly the Western world, thinks. What's your feeling about that?
A: I won't try to comment on what the leaders of Burma think: I have no way of knowing what their thinking is. What we're thinking right now is that there's a tremendous disaster, and there are hundreds of thousands – a million and a half people – who desperately need assistance. And our complete focus right now is to do anything we can to help get the assistance to them, and we would like to work with Burmese authorities to make that happen and are urging them to allow access for assistance and for foreign experts to come deliver that assistance.
Q: Since 1988, U.S. foreign policy toward Burma has mostly been to isolate the regime and force the military from power. It seems so far that sanctions have only strengthened the resolve of the military government toward opposing the U.S. Is it time for the U.S. to change tack at this point?
A: I guess I would disagree slightly with the premise of your question. It hasn't been our policy to isolate Burma. To be honest, over the years the Burmese have moved to isolate themselves. Our interest is in a unified, independent Burma that's increasingly prosperous and joins the rest of ASEAN in moving in a positive direction and that its people enjoy freedom and democracy. And what we've been calling for over the last couple of years, particularly, is very much what most of the rest of the international community and the United Nations is calling for: a genuine dialogue between the government – regime – and the opposition and the ethnic minority groups that leads to a transition to a government that has popular support and credibility and is able to begin to tackle the country's problems. That's our approach. But again I want to emphasize our focus right now is on the immediate disaster and the need to get help to the people. This is not a political issue. This is a purely humanitarian issue and that's really our emphasis right now.
Q: But clearly politics have a bearing on the regime's approach to allowing aid in, and particularly allowing, it has to be said, aid from the U.S. So, if the regime continues to basically stonewall foreign aid, is there any basis for considering unilateral action, such as dropping loads of aid into affected areas with or without the junta's permission?
A: As I mentioned earlier, any effective assistance has to be delivered with access authorized by the government. And so that's really our focus. And I think there's been a certain amount of frustration, as you would expect when there's a delay to getting authorization to get assistance in. We welcome the fact that the government did say that it welcomed assistance from all countries and has authorized at least an initial flight from the United States bringing assistance into the country on Monday. And we're going to start with that and hope that leads to further assistance being able to get in from the United States (inaudible).
Q: But isn't it too slow?
A: Inevitably it's too slow, yes. I think everybody agrees on that. What we have to do is work with the realities as they are, and we would have loved to see more assistance getting in right away. Unfortunately that didn't happen. But it makes it all the more important that we redouble our efforts to try to convince the authorities of Burma to allow more assistance, so that's what we're going to do.
Q: And the redoubling of efforts still means talking and dialogue?
A: Yes.
Q: Is there a backup plan?
A: I'm not sure that there's another alternative. We really need to – and I think this is the consensus in ASEAN as well – our intention is to continue to have conversations with the authorities in Burma and gain support for bringing in assistance, not only from the United States but from around the world.
Q: So is it more important to engage in dialogue with the junta or to get aid to the people who need it and will die soon?
A: I wouldn't phrase it in that way because in order to get assistance into people, you have to work with the government and you have to get permission from the government.
Q: Ideally, but clearly that's an issue at the moment.
A: Well, it's something that everyone is spending a huge amount of time working on and we just have to keep at it.
Q: So you think the best way of engaging the government is the soft means of diplomacy. Would you consider military intervention on humanitarian grounds?
A: We're not considering it.
Q: Are you ruling that out?
A: I'm not in a position to make that kind of decision, but certainly I have not heard any such conversation.
Q: What else can ASEAN do to encourage Myanmar, for want of a better word? Is suspending them or expelling them an option? Would that be constructive? There's a sense of helplessness here that they don't seem to really pay much attention to what anybody else thinks or says. And yet there are millions of people who are clearly in need of aid and the rest of the world seems helpless to do anything about it.
A: I leave it to ASEAN to decide what it might want to do. My own view is that actions like expelling Burma – I mean, that's really up to ASEAN to decide; we don't have a say in that at all – but I'm not sure that helps get aid to people. We're all frustrated at the slow pace of movement on this, but I think the only way that we can see that we, the international community, have a reasonable prospect of getting assistance into the people is to continue to work. And I think a lot of ASEAN countries are making great efforts to work with the authorities. And there is some assistance flowing. It's not enough. We all want to try to increase the flow, and that's where we're going to focus.
Q: Do you think ASEAN has the ability to be more invested, pushing [Burma] not just in this crisis, but in general on the path to democracy?
A: That's a hard question to answer. I think everybody involved in this has tried, and governments need to keep thinking creatively and keep up a conversation to try to figure out a positive way forward. I'm not going to fault ASEAN here. I'm not sure that I see a situation in which 'if only ASEAN had done x or y, things would be different.' ASEAN's been trying and no doubt will continue to try.
Q: I understand you're going to Thailand on Saturday. Is there any particular reason you're going there?
A: Nothing in particular at this point. I was just in Malaysia and Jakarta before I came here, so I travel through the region regularly to consult with people and we have our assistance team up there that's applied for visas to get into Burma. So we have a lot of people up there who are trying to help out and I want to talk to them and get a sense of what we're doing. (inaudible)
Q: Are you meeting with the Prime Minister while you're there?
A: No, I'm not planning to.
Q: What do you think are ASEAN's strengths and weaknesses?
A: I think the passage of the Charter really strengthened ASEAN and has put ASEAN in a position where it can move ahead on a pretty ambitious set of goals. So I think the ambitious goals of ASEAN, and the fact that you have now forty years of experience of people in the region talking to each other, developing relationships, building up confidence. I think – you asked earlier about how sometimes people criticize ASEAN. I think one of the things that people forget is that ASEAN has served as a very effective forum for a long time for leaders and senior officials in the region to talk to each other, a forum for them to work out their problems, and I think that's a huge asset for ASEAN.
Q: Weaknesses?
A: Again, I don't want to be critical at all, but I think regional organizations like this oftentimes have to work by consensus. And that sometimes slows down decision making. I'm not sure that there's a different way of doing it, to be honest. Lots of regional organizations work this way. But it's kind of the tradeoff you have: you have ten countries and all of them have to agree. It does slow down the decision making process. But I'm not sure I see a better way to handle that.
Q: You mentioned trade earlier. I'd like to talk about the possibility of a U.S.-ASEAN FTA. How is that moving forward?
A: We're not talking about a U.S.-ASEAN FTA. We have a Trade and Investment Framework Arrangement where we talk about trade and investment issues, but I don't see in the short term the prospects for a U.S.-ASEAN free trade agreement. We have had free trade agreements talks – well, of course we have an FTA with Singapore, we've had talks recently with Malaysia, but not ASEAN-wide.
Q: You would rule it out in the short term. How short is the short term? Can you quantify it?
A: Not really. As a lot of ASEAN officials will tell you, there's a pretty significant development gap within ASEAN, and countries are at different stages in terms of trade liberalization and investment liberalization, the sort of thing that would make it very difficult to do a region-wide FTA.
Q: So what more will it take? Is 2015 in the short term?
A: That's a little too far in the future for me to comment on. I would just say in the short term it's not realistic. We can continue, and we do have very good trade and investment talks.
Q: So what more must be done before you would consider (inaudible)?
A: Well, I would defer to my colleagues who do trade. I'm not the trade guy.
Q: China is a key ally of Myanmar's. How important is it to engage China in this dialogue process that you say is so crucial to getting aid to people, and what is being done between the U.S. and China, for instance, to encourage the Chinese to be more proactive?
A: China is on the record encouraging the Burmese authorities to allow greater international access. We welcome that, we've talked to the Chinese about it. There's broad agreement that we need to find a way to get assistance to these people. Everyone is doing it in their own way, encouraging this.
Q: Do you think it's actually counterproductive that aid agencies, governments including the U.S., the U.K., and Australia, are weighing in and criticizing the regime at this time?
A: We're not weighing in and criticizing the regime. You've seen our statements. We're focusing on the very practical: how do we try to get assistance in. That’s really our focus.
Q: Do you think it's counterproductive that other people are doing it?
A: I don't know.
Q: Can you give us a sense of how important ASEAN is to the U.S. national interests?
A: It's very important for a couple of reasons. We talked about the economics already: it's our fourth-largest export market, and a very dynamic region. It's also an important area on so many other issues. Cooperation on health, security, things like maritime security since it's such a big shipping – the Malacca Strait in particular is a key area in shipping – and I think we can work together on a lot of issues in the region. There are two ASEAN members that are on the Security Council in the United Nations. So it's hugely important to us, which is why we've been so heavily engaged in the region for so long. 550 million people. That's a lot of people. A lot of close relations; there are two treaty allies in ASEAN. Very good relations with (inaudible).
Q: But it seems like the focus of U.S. foreign policy has been very much on the north. Northeast Asia, China, Japan, India. What kind of policies are you planning to put in place to convince ASEAN that they remain as important as you say?
A: I think if you look at what we're actually doing, there's extensive engagement. Just in the last six weeks the U.S. Trade Representative has been here, the Secretary for Health and Human Services has been here, the Secretary of Defense has been here. That's just in the last month or so. So we've got lots of regular high-level exchanges. And then we have a ton of things going on at the slightly lower levels, including our dialogue that we had today, and a wide range of programs on the environment, health, economic growth, promoting economic integration, disaster relief, all kinds of things. Energy. So we'll continue to do those, and we'll look for opportunities to expand where it's in our common interest. But I think the fact is that there's already very extensive engagement.
Q: Does the U.S. see ASEAN as sort of a counterweight to China?
A: We don't really look at it that way. A lot of people seem to think that we do. But in fact we don't. We value Southeast Asia for its own sake. It's a big, important part of the world. China has grown and developed tremendously. We think that's a positive thing. It has its relations with Southeast Asia. We think that's fine. We welcome that. And we look forward to opportunities to work with China as well as with ASEAN together to accomplish good things.
Q: Are you planning to travel around to other countries?
A: Not too much more on this trip, but since January I've been out here to the region three times, to eight or nine of the ASEAN countries. So I'll be visiting regularly.
Q: But based in the U.S.?
A: Based in Washington, but here a lot.
Q: What's the strangest Asian food you've eaten?
A: How do I answer this diplomatically? In Vietnam – and this was a long time ago, before I was working on ASEAN, maybe ten years ago – I ate something I didn't even know existed, which is called pangolin. I don't even know how to describe it, but it's a small animal, and the meat was kind of blue. That was the strangest. I don't want to get in trouble with my Vietnamese friends.
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