We will be watching closely as the leaders of 34 countries assemble in Bangkok on Saturday for a three-day summit of the Asia Cooperation Dialogue. It is only their second meeting in the forum’s 14-year history, but that’s not the reason why little, frankly, seems to have been accomplished.

The gathering will at least boost the international stature of Thailand’s military-run government, and other benefits are possible, yet hopes are not high. Since its inauguration in Cha-Am in 2002, the ACD has barely registered on the public’s radar, neither here nor anywhere else in the world. It was regarded with suspicion from the outset, being an initiative of then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his foreign minister, Surakiart Sathirathai.

Critics objected that another international forum was redundant. Southeast Asia already had Asean, with its dialogue partners from around the globe. The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation remains our region’s link to South Asia. The Greater Mekong Sub-region seeks to unify nations along that river on issues beyond just the river’s use. Casual observers get the sense that some officials do nothing else but attend meetings -- leaving little time to implement any potentially helpful projects conceived.

The ACD gave itself the mandate to “promote interdependence” among Asian countries on the basis of “common strengths and opportunities”, the stated aims being less poverty and better quality of life. It seeks to develop “a knowledge-based society” and “empower” people, expand trade and financial markets and make Asia more competitive globally. The ACD is pursuing 20 areas of cooperation, including science and technology, education, security on food, energy and water, culture and tourism, sustainable development and connectivity.

Despite such a broad and ambitious agenda -- or perhaps because of it -- the ACD has achieved little. Ask Thais what projects the ACD has launched in this country and most would have no idea.

Membership in the ACD has steadily expanded from 18 to 34, Nepal being the latest nation to join, and the leaders have mustered only once before for a summit meeting, in 2012. It’s their foreign-affairs chiefs who gather annually to keep the ball rolling.

In the decade since Thaksin was removed from power, successive Thai governments have been noticeably quiet about the ACD. The news media are largely blank on the subject, ignoring meetings held outside Thailand. A ministerial meeting in Bangkok in March drew scant coverage, though it was noted that many of the ministers made token appearances and then went home, leaving the mundane work to senior officials or ambassadors.

It is no surprise that the military government has now convened another leaders’ conference in Thailand. Rather than an acknowledgement of a good idea on the part of Thaksin, the generals’ foe, it is an opportunistic ploy to give Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha another soapbox from which to burnish his foreign credentials. General Prayut will preside at the opening and share his “vision” of an “ACD community” by 2030. On the agenda and sure to be adopted are the “Bangkok Declaration” and the “ACD Vision for Asia Cooperation 2030.”

The government is also pushing more state cooperation with the private sector across Asia. Sunday will see the ACD Connect Business Forum at which entrepreneurs will pitch proposals to be presented to the national leaders on Monday.

We await a positive outcome. The Foreign Ministry has said the ACD summit will boost Thai confidence within the Asian community and underscore its “constructive” international role in having conceived the dialogue in the first place. Surely more than that can come out of the proceedings.

(Asia News Network/The Nation)
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