S. Dhanabalan
Acc. No. 001500, Track 7
Recorded 24 May 1994
Interviewed by Dr N. Ganesan

The value of ASEAN was not recognised so much at the time of its launching but over the years. Slowly, as its reputation built up and as a more or less cooperative kind of atmosphere began to prevail. So there was no euphoria, there was no great enthusiasm, but – it was an experiment which everybody went into with not great expectations.

S. Dhanabalan
Acc. No. 001500, Track 7
Recorded 24 May 1994
Interviewed by Dr N. Ganesan

’67 was a period of around one to two years after the end of Konfrontasi, which pitted Malaysia against Indonesia. And I think Indonesia, after that particular episode, wanted to clearly indicate that it wanted to be part of the region and a cooperative member of the region. So I think with Indonesian enthusiasm and backing for a new grouping [that became ASEAN], it was decided to make yet another attempt then. I don’t think many of us really felt that it was going to be any more successful than the previous ones. And the fact that it’s been successful is due to a number of circumstances. But when it was launched, I don’t think anybody really had high expectations.

S.R. Nathan (Sellapan Ramanathan)
Acc. No. 001672, Track 1
Recorded 24 July 1995
Interviewed by Dr N. Ganesan

In July 1967, a message was received from the Foreign Minister of Thailand, inviting Mr Rajaratnam to attend a Ministerial Meeting in Bangkok beginning the 2nd of August, to discuss the formation of a new Association of Southeast Asian Cooperation. No name had been given at that stage.

What happened before that was, we had a visit from Anwar Sani. Anwar Sani was Adam Malik’s [then Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs and later Vice-President of Indonesia] representative and he came to discuss economic cooperation. Ambassador Sunarso was then ambassador here. Together with Anwar Sani, they came here in June ’67 and spoke about an Indonesian proposal to set up an organisation for regional cooperation. The indication was that Burma and Cambodia were unwilling to join but were not opposed to the idea. Singapore was considered one of the five to inaugurate the scheme and the visitors left with us an Indonesian draft of a joint declaration.

S.R. Nathan (Sellapan Ramanathan)
Acc. No. 001672, Track 1
Recorded 24 July 1995
Interviewed by Dr N. Ganesan

In the conversation that he had with Adam Malik [then Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs and later Vice-President of Indonesia], I think [Mr Rajaratnam] made the point that the conditions for a successful regional cooperation would be – it would require similarity of member countries in stages of economic development, in their cultural affinity, in harmony of peoples and government and economic complementarity or potential for economic complementarity. Where we fitted in was also in the fact of our economic complementarity.

I think we agreed that the five countries to inaugurate would be a good team and that Singapore would participate actively in it. A crucial condition for success which he spelt out was that there should be an understanding by all countries, that while certain economic cooperation projects may result in mutual benefit without any sacrifice, there would also be others that would require mutual sacrifices for mutual gains. And the fields of interest that is spelt out for Singapore were tourism, shipping, fisheries and free trade area.

S. Dhanabalan
Acc. No. 001500, Track 7
Recorded 24 May 1994
Interviewed by Dr N. Ganesan

First, we were very, very realistic in our expectations. And that was one of the reasons why ASEAN succeeded. We did not set ourselves very high, lofty targets.

I must say that Singapore itself had some unrealistic expectations when we first went to Bangkok to negotiate the ASEAN agreement. We thought that it could somehow be shaped into a kind of Southeast Asian version of the European Community, and therefore we plugged very strongly for the economic aspect – integration of markets, Free Trade Area, and so on. And it was completely premature. But I think our whole mood was, we had just lost the idea of a Malaysian common market and we carried over the thinking of that into the ASEAN negotiations. And quite unrealistically, we pressed very hard to include clauses in the agreement with strong economic emphasis, which was resisted by the others, including Thailand. And therefore we dropped it.

And after that, I think everybody sort of took a step back and said, ‘Well, look. Let’s not be overambitious in our expectations.’ Because to push very strongly and fail would have set back the whole region even more. And I think there are enough examples in Africa, for example, to show that to launch cooperative ventures among nations with very lofty targets results in, at the end, a lot of acrimony and ill-feeling that really ends up in a situation worse than before they got together.

S.R. Nathan (Sellapan Ramanathan)
Acc. No. 001672, Track 1
Recorded 24 July 1995
Interviewed by Dr N. Ganesan

Our approach was [that] the five countries were different. If we were to succeed, it had to focus on economic cooperation. I think the thinking behind us was Singapore and Malaya were one people and we tried a political union in the belief that through political union there would be economic benefits for both but that turned out to be a failure. So as a result of that, what happened was our focus was essentially to keep this organisation on regional economic cooperation.

S. Dhanabalan
Acc. No. 001500, Track 7
Recorded 24 May 1994
Interviewed by Dr N. Ganesan

The mood was a very cooperative one and the idea was not to do anything that would force any country to take a strong position against any particular part of the Declaration. So everybody tried his best not to put in or demand features, which would force others to take strong positions.

S.R. Nathan (Sellapan Ramanathan)
Acc. No. 001672, Track 1
Recorded 24 July 1995
Interviewed by Dr N. Ganesan

The response was positive and I think they were also guided by the fact that while the European Community came about as a result of one hundred years of intra-European fighting and they had come to settle and work together [on] the Treaty of Rome, most other efforts of regional cooperation had not been startling in their results, whether it was LAFTA [Latin American Free Trade Area] or whatever. So I suppose the leaders had their apprehensions when all these other countries that had commonalities in so many areas couldn’t succeed, could we five disparate countries – two British colonies, one American, one Dutch colony and independent Thailand – could we succeed? We were not sure. So that is why the focus was essentially on economics and say, that is what will bring better life to our people and on that I think we were all united.