Dinasti Kepemimpinan Negara-negara Asia

Dinasti Kepemimpinan Negara-negara Asia Kishore Mahbubani ;  Dekan Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy pada National University of Singapore

KORAN TEMPO,  11 Januari 2013

Di mana budaya berperan dalam politik, perubahan kepemimpinan yang terjadi di Asia Timur Laut akhir-akhir ini memberi kesan bahwa masyarakat di Asia lebih toleran terhadap--jika bukan mendukung-suksesi kepemimpinan mengikuti alur dinasti.  Presiden Korea Selatan yang baru-baru ini terpilih, Park Geun-hye, adalah putri Park Chung Hee, yang memerintah negeri itu dari 1961 sampai 1979. Presiden Cina yang akan datang, Xi Jinping, adalah putra Xi Zhongxun, seorang mantan perdana menteri. Perdana Menteri Jepang yang baru, Shinzo Abe, adalah cucu laki-laki dan sepupu putra dari dua mantan Perdana Menteri Jepang, serta putra seorang mantan menteri luar negeri. Kim Jong-un adalah putra dan cucu lelaki dari dua orang pendahulunya di Korea Utara. Pola ini tidak terbatas di Asia Timur Laut saja. Presiden Filipina Benigno Aquino III adalah putra mantan presiden Corazon Aquino. Perdana Menteri Malaysia Najib Abdul Razak dan Perdana Menteri Singapura Lee Hsien Loong masing-masing juga adalah putra mantan perdana menteri. Di India, Rahul Gandhi sudah bersiap-siap menempati posisi yang pernah ditempati buyut lelakinya (Jawaharlal Nehru), neneknya (Indira Gandhi), dan ayahnya (Rajiv Gandhi). Di Pakistan, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, putra Presiden Asif Ali Zardari dan mantan perdana menteri yang terbunuh, Benazir Bhutto, serta cucu lelaki mantan Perdana Menteri Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, baru-baru ini terjun ke dunia politik. Adakah suksesi dinasti ini sudah merupakan norma di seluruh Asia? Tidak terbantahkan bahwa garis silsilah keturunan orang-orang besar memberi seorang calon di dunia politik keunggulan atas pesaing-pesaingnya. Tapi juga jelas bahwa memiliki kekerabatan dengan orang-orang besar tidak menjamin keberhasilan. Lihat saja mantan Presiden Filipina Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Aquino adalah seorang presiden yang dihormati, namun Arroyo dianggap sebagai salah seorang paling korup di negeri itu. Soalnya menyangkut sikap para pemimpin itu ketika mereka menempati jabatannya. Jika mereka menganggap jabatan itu sebagai hak karena keturunan, kemungkinan besar mereka akan mengalami kegagalan, seperti dialami Arroyo. Untungnya, bagi Asia Timur, sebagian besar di antara mereka tampaknya mengemban jabatannya dengan penuh tanggung jawab dan komitmen memperkuat negeri masing-masing.  Istilah "putra mahkota" mungkin tidak pantas diberikan kepada Xi. Bukankah ia boleh dikatakan mengalami kehidupan yang tidak dimanjakan. Setelah ayahnya didepak Mao Zedong, Xi pindah bekerja di pedesaan bahkan sebelum Revolusi Budaya 1966-1976. Ia mengalami sendiri penderitaan yang menimpa banyak orang segenerasinya pada waktu itu. Setelah berhasil mencapai puncak kedudukan, ia tidak merasa hal itu sebagai sesuatu yang sudah menjadi haknya. Ia bahkan menganggapnya sebagai tanggung jawab yang harus dibuktikannya bahwa ia memperoleh kedudukan itu berdasarkan merit, bukan privilege. Xi pasti juga sadar bahwa anak para pemimpin Republik Rakyat Cina generasi kedua menghadapi ketidaksenangan publik karena cepatnya akumulasi kekayaan mereka. Itulah sebabnya, Xi fokus pada pemberantasan korupsi. Jika Xi gagal, ia bakal dianggap gagal dan dengan itu monopoli politik Partai Komunis Cina mungkin juga bakal berakhir lebih cepat daripada yang diperkirakan banyak orang. Xi memikul beban yang berat di pundaknya Begitu juga halnya dengan Park Geun-hye. Seperti Xi, ia harus berjuang untuk mencapai puncak kedudukan yang sekarang ditempatinya. Ayahnya mengangkat Korea Selatan keluar dari lembah kemiskinan dan mengubah negeri itu menjadi macan ekonomi. Tapi pemerintahannya juga sangat represif. Lebih berat lagi bagi Park, banyak di antara para pendahulunya dianggap gagal sebagai pemimpin. Dua orang mantan presiden, Roh Tae-woo dan Chun Doo-hwan, diseret ke depan pengadilan; seorang lagi, Roh Moo-hyun, bunuh diri. Ada pula rumor yang tidak sedap mengenai Presiden Lee Myung-bak yang bakal digantikan oleh Park. Korea Selatan jelas merupakan negara yang berhasil, yang sekarang sedang berjuang meneguhkan kedudukannya. Dalam teori, ia seharusnya merayakan pencapaian di bidang ekonomi dan budaya yang telah direbutnya. Dalam prakteknya, sebagai suatu negara yang kecil di suatu lingkungan yang tidak aman--dan dengan Korea Utara sebagai sumber ketegangan yang terus menerus--ia menghadapi ancaman terhadap eksistensinya sendiri sebagai suatu negara. Dan Park, yang kemenangan yang dicapainya dalam pemilihan presiden tidak mengurangi sikap ambivalen rakyatnya terhadap ayahnya, pasti menyadari bahwa menyembuhkan sikap mendua rakyatnya itu tidak mudah. Tugas paling sulit adalah tugas yang menanti Rahul Gandhi. Tidak satu pun partai bisa mendominasi politik di India seperti Partai Kongres sejak kemerdekaan negeri itu, artinya suatu masa depan koalisi yang sulit dan penuh pertikaian. Dalam keadaan demikian, India perlu, pertama-tama, kepemimpinan yang tegas. Namun, seperti Hamlet, Rahul tampaknya juga menunjukkan sifat keragu-raguan. Ia sebenarnya sudah bisa mengemban tugas itu beberapa tahun yang lalu, tapi ia memilih untuk tidak berbuat demikian. Keragu-raguannya pasti mencerminkan kebimbangan yang mendalam dalam dirinya. Keengganan Rahul ini bisa dimengerti. Lagi-lagi, suksesi dinasti tidak menjamin keberhasilan. Di Malaysia, Razak, misalnya, telah berupaya keras untuk menyatukan kembali negerinya dengan pesan "Malaysia" yang dikumandangkannya. Namun semua indikasi menunjukkan bahwa ia bakal menghadapi pemilihan yang sengit pada 2013. Walau kemungkinan besar tidak akan terjadi, koalisi Barisan Nasional pimpinan Razak bisa mengalami perpecahan. Prospek seperti ini tidak pernah dihadapi para pendahulunya. Di Jepang, Abe dianggap telah menampilkan kinerja yang buruk dalam jabatannya yang pertama sebagai perdana menteri pada 2006-2007, kendati garis silsilahnya mengesankan. Sekarang ia akan mengemban tugas memimpin negara yang bahkan lebih berat dengan tantangan yang dihadapinya, baik di dalam maupun di luar negeri. Tidak banyak orang yang mengatakan bahwa ia akan berhasil. Singkatnya, pola dinasti kepemimpinan di Asia tidak membuatnya kebal terhadap tantangan berat yang sekarang menimpa banyak negara di dunia. Sementara Asia berhasil menciptakan kelas menengah terbesar di dunia--diproyeksikan tumbuh lebih dari tiga kali lipat, dari 500 juta menjadi 1,75 miliar menjelang 2020--ia juga bakal harus menghadapi tuntutan adanya pemerintah yang lebih kompeten dan lebih akuntabel. Di Asia, hari ini tugas yang diemban oleh mereka yang memperoleh mahkota kepemimpinan itu memang tidak mudah. ●

Australia’s destiny in the ASIAN Century

Australia’s destiny in the ASIAN Century

Kishore Mahbubani ;  The writer, Dean of Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, is a former Singapore permanent representative to the United Nations

JAKARTA POST, 08 September 2012

However, there are assets that Australia could take for granted too easily. As a Western power, Australia could more easily establish good relations with its Asian neighbors when Western power was globally dominant. It always helps to be a member of the most successful club in the world. 

Hence, Australia’s close links with London initially and Washington DC subsequently were seen to be an asset rather than a liability in the region. 

It also helped that Australia, ASEAN, China and the West were on the same side throughout the Cold War from roughly 1950 to 1990. However, the Cold War has long ended. 

The new major geopolitical contest will now be, in one way or another, between America and China. Hence, simultaneously, Australia will soon have to make painful choices on both the cultural and geopolitical fronts.

The time has therefore come for Australia to engage in some hard-headed and tough-minded questioning about its security and foreign policies in the coming decades. I cannot emphasize enough that continuing on auto-pilot is not 
an option. 

As a friend of Australia, I would like to urge it to wake up sooner to the new realities of our world. The earlier Australia makes the adjustments, the less painful they will be. 

No one can predict the future, even if we can make reasonable judgments about likely long-term trends. All kinds of geopolitical scenarios could emerge. I suggest some possible geopolitical challenges that could emerge: the Sino-American, the Sino-Indian and the tension between Islam and the West. 

Each of these three geopolitical fault lines would pose real challenges to Australia. All would require Australia to make adjustments.

Australia has been blessed with an unexpected but valuable geopolitical buffer: ASEAN. For all its flaws and defects, ASEAN has enhanced Australian security by keeping Southeast Asia at peace (with no refugee spillover onto an empty continent), keeping Asian powers (like China and India) at arms’ length and increasing multilateral webs of cooperation which have created greater geopolitical stability. 

One of the biggest geopolitical mistakes Australia made in recent decades was to take ASEAN’s geopolitical success for granted. Even worse, Australia has, from time to time, tried to undermine or bypass ASEAN in its diplomatic initiatives. All these moves demonstrate that Australia has not fully understood how its geopolitical destiny is going to evolve.

One fundamental flaw in Australia’s geopolitical thinking arises from a complacent assumption that Australia will always remain a “middle power” in global rankings. Australia’s inclusion in the G20 has contributed to the illusion that Australia will always remain a middle power. 

Few Australians are aware that Australia was only included in the G20 because of relative GNP calculations made by Larry Summers and Paul Martin in 1999. That was when Western power was still at its peak. 

As several Asian and other emerging powers grow in economic strength, Australia’s position in the global order will slip slowly and steadily. Soon Australia will no longer be perceived as a middle power.

In my new book, The Great Convergence, I propose a new 7-7-7 formula for reforming the UN Security Council. There will be seven permanent members, seven semi-permanent members taken from the list of the 28 next-most powerful countries in the world, and seven elected members. 

To give equal weight to “democratic representation” and “economic weight”, a country’s place in the global ranking is based on its average share of global population and global GNP. 

Annex A provides a ranking of the 193 UN member states and the EU. As UN seats are distributed according to a formula for regional representation, Australia does not earn a place among the middle powers in the “Western Europe and Others Group” (WEOG) that it belongs to. 

Thus one painful decision that Australia will have to make is when it will leave the “Western Europe and Others Group” (WEOG) in all UN bodies. Australia’s geographical and geopolitical destiny is in Asia. Its participation in the WEOG is the result of a historical anachronism. How much longer will Australia cling on to a historical anachronism?

The unavoidable conclusion, Australia (and New Zealand) have no choice but to move closer to ASEAN. A new “Community of 12”, including the 10 ASEAN countries, Australia and New Zealand, represents the natural geopolitical destiny of Australia. Paul Keating tried to steer Australia in that direction during his Prime Ministership from 1991 to 1996. 

Sadly, subsequent Australian Prime Ministers have failed to do so. Many precious geopolitical opportunities were wasted as Australia returned to its traditional historical direction of focusing on the West. More years will be wasted if Australia fails to engage in new thinking. ●

Australia’s destiny in the Asian Century

Australia’s destiny in the Asian Century

Kishore Mahbubani ;  The writer, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew school of public policy, National University of Singapore, is former Singapore permanent representative to the United Nations

JAKARTA POST, 07 September 2012

By the logic of geography, the continent of Australia should have been populated with Asians. Instead, by an accident of history, Australia has been predominantly populated with Westerners. This historical accident is now coming to an end. 

The past two centuries of Western domination of world history have been a major historical aberration because from the year 1 to the year 1820, the two largest economies in the world were always Asian (China and India). All historical aberrations come to a natural end. We will return soon to the Asian century, if not the Asian millennium.

The one country that will have to make the most painful adjustment to the Asian century is undoubtedly Australia. As Western power slowly but steadily recedes from Asia, Australia could well be left beached, together with New Zealand, as the sole Western entity in Asia. Today, Australia is naturally clinging on to American power for comfort. The deployment of 2,500 Marines in Darwin recently clearly sent a signal that Australia was counting on American security protection. 

Yet American power will also recede steadily. Few Americans and Australians are aware of how quickly the American economy will become number two in the world. IMF statistics show that in PPP terms America had a 25 percent share of the global economy in 1980, while China only had 2.2 percent. By 2016, the American share will decline to 17.6 percent while the Chinese share will rise to 18 percent. 

Under these dramatically changed historical circumstances, the biggest mistake that Australia could make is to continue on auto-pilot, clinging to Western or American power as its sole source of security. 

A strong desire to remain part of the West is perfectly natural. The Australian Foreign Minister, Bob Carr, explained this desire well in his interview with The Straits Times on July 6. “But by language and institutions and values, Australia is undeniably Western and should not apologize for it,” he said. “It is who we are. It makes us interesting and it makes us valuable to all interlocutors... A parliamentary democracy, an independent judiciary, a free press, a focus on human rights — all derive from the Western tradition. The Asian migrants who come here bringing their cultures and their perspectives like it that way.”

The logic of cultural identity cannot, however, trump hard geopolitical considerations. Let me make a slightly provocative comparison to drive home that point. The West supported the white minority apartheid government throughout the Cold War because it was seen as a necessary bulwark against Soviet expansion in Africa. 

However, as soon as the Cold War ended, South Africa lost its strategic usefulness and was quickly abandoned by the West. Their common cultural roots did not factor in the equation. At the same time, to avoid any misunderstanding, let me stress that Australia, unlike apartheid South Africa, does not sit as a “foreign” object in Asia. 

It has adapted relatively well over the years to its Asian neighborhood. It enjoys close and friendly relations with many of its Asian neighbors. 

Indeed, Australia has many assets in Asia. First, Australia is a member of the Five Power Defense Arrangements (FPDA) together with Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Established in 1971, the FPDA has sought to complement the traditional US bilateral alliances and networks, more recent minilateral arrangements, as well as ASEAN’s operations in promoting peace and stability in Southeast Asia. In so doing, Australia, together with the UK and New Zealand, plays a part in sustaining the Southeast Asian security architecture.

Second, Australia has carried out a number of education and training projects through the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and other government agencies. In fact, AusAID funds the ASEAN-Australia Development Cooperation Program which helps in the realization of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015. 

The program focuses on building the institutional capacity of ASEC, funding critical economic research and policy activities, and implementing projects that help less developed ASEAN member states operationalize elements of the ASEAN Economic Blueprint. 

In short, Australia is already playing a pivotal role in raising the quality of education and training among ASEAN member states.

Third, Australia has cultivated close ties with its Asian neighbors, particularly Japan and Indonesia. Japan and Australia have close economic ties, since Japan is Australia’s largest trading partner and a major source of capital investment. In 2007, Australia and Japan started negotiations on a bilateral free trade agreement. Both countries have also cooperated in the areas of culture, tourism, defense and scientific cooperation. 

Australia also has generally good ties with Indonesia. Since the independence of Indonesia, both countries have cooperated in the areas of fisheries conservation, law enforcement, and justice. In June 2006, Indonesia and Australia also concluded a security agreement, known as the Lombok Agreement, to provide a framework for the development of the bilateral security relationship.

In 2011-2012, Australia’s assistance to Indonesia was worth an estimated $558 million. Indonesia is Australia’s top recipient of bilateral aid. Both countries also have a healthy trade and economic relationship with two-way trade (merchandise and services) worth $13.8 billion in 2010-11, and two-way investment worth around $5.7 billion in 2010. 

The importance of the Australian-Indonesian relationship can be summarized in a 1994 speech by Paul Keating in which he said, “No country is more important to Australia than Indonesia. If we fail to get this relationship right, and nurture and develop it, the whole web of our foreign relations is incomplete. [...] The emergence of the New Order government of president Soeharto, and the stability and prosperity which [it] has brought to [Indonesia], was the single most beneficial strategic development to have affected Australia and its region in the past 30 years.” ●