统一东盟的幻象 The fiction of a unified harmonised Asean

If you think European nations are having a hard time holding it together — strained by disputes over immigration, austerity and debt — spare a thought for the 10 countries that form the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

如果你认为受移民、紧缩和债务方面纠纷的困扰，欧洲国家的团结眼下面临考验，那么你还是省点心思、想想东南亚国家联盟(Asean)的10个成员国吧。

True, compared with Europe, they face few fatally divisive problems. Most of Southeast Asia is contending with the impact of a slowing China and braced for the turbulence that could accompany the steady normalisation of US monetary policy. Yet there are no big financial transfers within Asean, a loose federation akin to the EU of the 1950s. No country is threatening to leave, nor are there fundamental differences over the direction of policy.

的确，和欧洲相比，这些国家几乎不面临什么致命问题。大多数东南亚国家正在应对中国放缓带来的影响，并为美国货币政策稳步正常化可能伴随的动荡做准备。然而，作为一个和上世纪50年代的欧盟类似的松散联盟，东盟内部不存在大规模的财政转移。没有哪个成员国威胁要退出东盟，东盟内部在政策方向上也不存在根本性分歧。

Still, as Asean prepares for an important milestone this month — the creation of a theoretically single market — it is worth reflecting on the incredible diversity of the “new bloc on the block”.

尽管如此，随着东盟将在本月迎来一个重大里程碑——建立一个理论上的单一市场——反思一下这个“地区经济体中新的经济共同体”不可思议的多样性是值得的。

The 625m people of Asean live in states that range from the sprawling Indonesian archipelago of 250m souls to the tiny sultanate of Brunei, with 400,000. You have Singapore, with a gross domestic product per capita of $55,000, and Cambodia at just over $1,000. There are cacophonous, if imperfect, democracies (Indonesia, the Philippines); Communist dictatorships (Vietnam); and military juntas (Thailand). There are states with majority Muslim populations, such as Malaysia and Indonesia; ones that are mostly Buddhist, including Myanmar; and the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines. Asean countries are even split over which side of the road to drive on. In five of them it is the left, and five the right — although in Vietnam they drive on both.

东盟的6.25亿人口生活在不同的国家。有拥有2.5亿人口、国土绵长的群岛国家印度尼西亚，也有仅有40万人口、面积狭小的苏丹国文莱。有人均国内生产总值(GDP)为5.5万美元的新加坡，也有人均GDP为1000美元多一点的柬埔寨。有虽然不完善，但充满了各种声音的民主国家（印尼、菲律宾），有共产主义独裁国家（越南），也有军政府掌权的国家（泰国）。有穆斯林占人口大多数的国家，比如马来西亚和印尼；有佛教徒占大多数的国家，比如越南；也有以罗马天主教徒为主的菲律宾。就连道路通行方向，东盟国家都存在差异。有5个国家靠左行驶，另外5个靠右行驶——不过在越南，人们随便开。

Given this diversity, it is no small miracle that Asean is forging ahead with integration by creating the Asean Economic Community, which formally takes effect on December 31. Theoretically, this creates a unified market in goods and services, and clears the path to free movement of people and harmonisation of regulations. It should be no surprise that much of this is fiction.

考虑到这样的多样性，东盟通过建立东盟经济共同体(Asean Economic Community)推进一体化是一个不小的奇迹。东盟经济共同体将在12月31日正式生效。理论上，这建立了一个统一的产品和服务市场，为人员自由流动和法规的协调扫清了道路。应该不令人意外的是，这在很大程度上是虚幻的。

Although 95 per cent of tariff lines are at zero, non-tariff barriers, from diverging regulatory standards to dysfunctional ports, make trade between nations frustratingly hard. Nor is there anything like free movement of labour, even in the skilled sector, which is supposedly on its way to full liberalisation. Multinationals operating in Asean complain that it is often hard to transfer staff from one country to another. Meanwhile, millions of unskilled migrants, from construction workers to fishermen, flit between countries in the shadows. In the penumbra of regulation, there is flagrant violation of human rights and even outright trafficking.

尽管95%的关税细目税率为零，从监管标准差异到无法正常运转的港口等种种非关税壁垒，使东盟国家之间的贸易艰难得令人沮丧。按照设想，成员国将全面开放人员的自由流动，然而哪怕是在需要高技能的领域，也不存在劳动力的自由流动。在东盟地区经营的跨国公司抱怨，把员工从一个国家转向另一个国家往往很困难。与此同时，从建筑工人到渔民，数百万不具备高技能的移民偷偷地来往于国家之间。在监管的灰色地带，存在着公然侵犯人权，甚至公然贩卖人口的行为。

Asean has no ability to sanction countries that flout its rules. It is “all carrot and no stick”, Jayant Menon, an expert on trade integration at the Asian Development Bank, told a Financial Times conference on the subject recently. Asean has a skeleton secretariat, to put it kindly, based in Jakarta. It has a budget of $17m — not enough to get an EU commissioner out of bed in the morning. Asked who you call when you want to call Asean, Abdul Farid Alias, president of Maybank, a Malaysian bank that has a presence in every Asean country, responds curtly: “No one.”

东盟没有能力制裁藐视其规则的国家。亚洲开发银行(ADB)的贸易一体化专家贾扬蔠鱨(Jayant Menon)最近在“英国《金融时报》东盟经济峰会”上表示，“都是胡萝卜，没有大棒”。委婉地说，东盟有一个人员配备非常“基本”的秘书处，总部设在雅加达。这个秘书处的预算是1700万美元——这个数字还不足以让一位欧盟专员早上从床上爬起来。当被问及如果想致电东盟应该给谁打电话的时候，在每个东盟成员国都设有分支机构的马来西亚银行马来亚银行(Maybank)行长阿卜杜勒法里德阿利亚斯(Abdul Farid Alias)给出了简短的回答：“没人”。

In spite of such flaws, some companies are trying to treat Asean as a single market.

尽管存在这些缺陷，一些企业正试图将东盟视为一个单一市场对待。

General Motors and GlaxoSmithKline have made Singapore their regional hub, though that may be because of the ease of doing business in the city state rather the attractions of Asean. Others are seeking to build production centres in Indonesia, Thailand or the Philippines. Rising wages in China are making these and other countries, including Myanmar and Cambodia for textiles, and Vietnam for textiles and electronics, more attractive.

通用汽车(General Motors)和葛兰素史克(GSK)都将亚洲总部设在了新加坡，尽管这可能是因为在这个城市国家经营业务较为便易，而不是因为东盟有吸引力。其他公司试图在印尼、泰国或者菲律宾建立生产中心。中国薪资水平的上涨使这几个和其他几个国家吸引力上升，包括缅甸和柬埔寨的纺织业，以及越南的纺织业和电子业。

Diageo, the drinks group, has placed hefty bets on Asean — lured, says Sam Fischer, its regional president, by consistent growth, young populations and the prospect of an expanding urban middle class. Yet it has sometimes been disappointed, such as when Indonesia suddenly clamped down on alcohol sales this year. Above all, says Mr Fischer, foreign investors want Asean to enforce clear and consistent rules.

酒品集团帝亚吉欧(Diageo)在东盟押上了巨额赌注。据其区域总裁萨姆费希尔(Sam Fischer)的说法，东盟的持续增长、年轻的人口结构和城市中产阶层可能不断扩大吸引了帝亚吉欧。然而，该公司有时也会失望，比如印尼今年突然打击售酒。萨姆费希尔表示，最重要的是，外国投资者希望东盟执行清晰和一致的法规。

That may be a problem. The “Asean way” favours consensus. Its lack of overarching ambition is a strength as well as a weakness. By taking a softly softly approach over the nearly five decades since it was founded, Asean has avoided pooled sovereignty and a single currency, both of which have become so contentious in Europe. It has held its project together with remarkably little friction. It has scored quiet successes, from steady tariff reduction to nudging Myanmar back into the fold of respectable nations.

这或许是个问题。“东盟模式”看重共识。这种模式缺乏统领全局的抱负，这既是一项优势，也是一项弱势。成立50年以来，东盟一直采用极为柔和的策略，避免了主权共享以及单一货币，这二者在欧洲均已变得极富争议。一直以来，东盟维持着一体化的推进，而居然几乎没有造成多少摩擦。从稳步减少关税到促使缅甸重回受尊敬国家的行列，东盟取得了低调的成功。

Yet carrots and consensus can only take you so far. Those looking for a new but faster-growing Europe in the heart of Asia will be disappointed.

然而，胡萝卜和共识只能帮它到这里了。那些期望看到亚洲腹地出现一个增长更快的“新欧洲”的人，肯定要失望了。