Negotiating an Asean (or Asian) document

With the 50th Asean Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and Related Meetings (AMM) over, Manila’s streets, especially those near the Philippine International Convention Center, are back to normal—meaning back to their chaotic state. For officials and other personnel of the Department of Foreign Affairs who were involved in the meetings in one way or another, this meant the return to their old routine in the home office—a prospect that was not all that appealing to many of the “returnees” who had been ensconced for more than a week in a comfortable hotel that served as the second home of many of the AMM delegates. I am one of the returnees.

Back at my office in the DFA which offers a panoramic view of Manila Bay, I cannot help but recall over and over again the thrill and sheer emotional intensity of chairing the Asean Drafting Group that produced the 50th AMM’s joint communiqué after three days of grueling, gut-wrenching negotiations. The joint communiqué is the primary outcome document of the AMM. It summarizes the major developments in the political-security, economic, and sociocultural pillars of Asean since the last AMM, which was held last year in Vientiane, Lao PDR. Its most difficult section is the one on “Regional and International Issues,” which is supposed to encapsulate all the views expressed by the foreign ministers on the most pressing political and security developments in Southeast Asia and the rest of the world.

What makes the joint communiqué difficult and challenging is not so much its thickness (it comprises a total of 217 paragraphs) as the fact that its text, from beginning to end, is negotiated. Consensus has to be reached by all the Asean member-states in each and every paragraph of the document, and on every word, phrase, or sentence that goes into all the paragraphs. Without consensus, there can be no joint communiqué. This was what happened in Cambodia in 2012: The 45th AMM did not issue a joint communiqué for the first time in 45 years because the Asean member-states failed to reach a consensus on the paragraphs related to the South China Sea disputes.

In this year’s AMM, the South China Sea disputes came to the fore again during the negotiations on the text of the document. The positions of some of the member-states were diametrically opposed to each other, thus raising the specter of a repeat of the debacle in Cambodia in 2012. This was an outcome that the Philippines, as Asean chair, could not afford to entertain even as a mere thought. The chairmanship of Asean happens only once every 10 years and this year, the Philippines’ chairmanship coincides with the 50th anniversary of the regional grouping. A failure in the joint communiqué on this momentous occasion was not an option.

In the end, the Drafting Group was able to produce a joint communiqué that was eventually released in the evening of Aug. 6 after additional, last-minute consultations on its text at the level of the foreign ministers themselves.

The negotiating process taught me one very important lesson: When negotiating Asean documents, the depth of one’s goodwill and personal relations with members of the other delegations trumps all claims or pretensions to intellectual superiority or superior negotiating skills. Consensus is often reached, not through a common intellectual understanding of certain words, phrases or concepts found in the text of a document, but through a shared realization that a certain position is what will work best for a fellow Asian or an Asean friend or brother.

This will not work in a western setting, which puts premium on direct, nonpersonal, confrontational, and head-on approach to issues and problems in negotiations. In the Asean setting, however, it works perfectly well because of the Asian culture’s focus on consensus, which involves talking to each other as friends or relatives, or working behind the scenes through third parties to resolve a difficult question, all the while maintaining harmony and preserving relationships.

To convey disapproval, people from the West might say outright, “You’re wrong.” But in an Asean or Asian setting, other delegations opposed to one’s position at the negotiating table might say, “That could be difficult,” without explaining why. The stress is on the personal, not professional, plane. The effort not to hurt or injure the feelings of the other delegations across the negotiating table is patent from the beginning to the end of the negotiations.

The outcome is a document that everyone can live with. It does not leave an aftertaste of hatred and suspicion that will linger up to, and most likely spoil, the next round of meetings. With such an outcome document on hand, every delegation goes back to their respective capitals, happy in the thought that Asean or Asian harmony was kept intact once again through the skillful application of the art of negotiating a document—the Asean or Asian way.

Edgar B. Badajos is a career foreign service officer with the rank of career minister and a director of the Department of Foreign Affairs’ Office of Asean Affairs.