Why I am grateful for Asean’s endless meetings
A modest lesson in a multipolar world is that sometimes the achievement is simply that disagreement does not end the conversation
I remember 2011 well. Indonesia was chairing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and I was serving as deputy foreign minister for Asean cooperation. I learned a great deal, although if I had to summarise the experience in one word, I would say: meetings.
Asean members meet. They talk. They disagree. They issue statements. Then, quite remarkably, they meet again. We meet in conference rooms, coffee shops and restaurants. We speak by telephone and online. And when matters become particularly serious, there is always durian.
To outsiders, Asean consensus can appear tedious. Where is the breakthrough? Why does everything take so long?
Yet the longer I work in diplomacy, the more I appreciate the willingness to meet again, especially after a disagreement. Agreement is important, but it is not the only measure of successful diplomacy. Sometimes, the achievement is simply that disagreement does not end the conversation. This is what I understand as the habit of dialogue.
