Proposals for a visa-free travel area spanning mainland Southeast Asia have prompted talk of an ‘ASEAN Schengen’. But could it ever actually happen?
Zain Ali | 19 September 2024
A year is a very long time in politics — and Srettha Thavisin proved you could accomplish a lot in that time (or, at least, talk a lot).
His year-long stint as Thailand’s PM, which came to an end barely weeks ago in August 2024, was defined by his unleashing of multiple mega-projects: legal casinos, the digital wallet, a land bridge, Ignite Thailand, and, of course, his most eye-catching proposal of all, a 90-day tourist visa covering six countries in the ASEAN zone — Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Malaysia.
Such a scheme would certainly be a tonic for Thailand’s economic challenges. In the face of declining exports and a dwindling manufacturing base, the country relies on tourism, which accounts for 20% of its jobs and 12% of its overall income.
Thailand isn’t alone. Most Southeast Asian economies are at least partially fuelled by tourism and thus received a crushing hammer blow during the global pandemic. In 2019, over 7 million tourists came to Cambodia — bringing 18% of the country’s revenue. By 2021, that number declined to 150,000. Laos, another tourism-reliant country, had its income eaten by the loss, with a nearly 80% drop in tourism.
A scheme to harmonise cross-border travel would almost certainly enrich the countries involved. But could it feasibly happen?
The Economic Potential of an ASEAN Schengen
Misleadingly, perhaps, the proposed scheme has drawn comparisons with the European ‘Schengen Area. I say misleadingly because this proposal wouldn’t enable the free movement of people within these six countries — only foreign nationals for three months out of every six.
Here, we enter murkier waters, as is the case with Schengen. The proposed transnational visa has been touted as a ‘tourist’ visa. This is where the Schengen comparison is most helpful.
Under Schengen rules, businesspeople can use a tourist visa to attend conferences and business meetings within the Schengen area, only becoming non-compliant when they receive remuneration from their trip directly. Such a scheme would be indispensable to the ASEAN nations in helping boost trade between the West and Southeast Asia. It would ride the crest of the ‘friendshoring’ wave, as Western companies decouple from their reliance on Chinese manufacturers. Many are now setting up in Vietnam.
So, this visa would be life-changing for businesses. Visiting manufacturing hubs or courting potential new clients and suppliers — all without the need for securing separate visas for every single nation — could be rendered seamless. Of course, this is speculation: no sources in the Thai press thus far mention that business travel will be allowed.
It won’t be without challenges, though. Companies with a globally dispersed workforce of digital nomads will still have to sponsor work visas. That doesn’t usually stop digital nomads, many of whom prefer the flexibility of tourist visas and often work unseen by the authorities. This can sometimes cause compliance issues in countries like Cambodia, whereas Thai authorities turn a blind eye to foreigners working on a tourist visa from their laptops, as long as they’re not taking jobs or money from locals.
Why Political Structures Stand in the Way
Let’s be clear: the ASEAN bloc is not the EU.
ASEAN is akin to a loose confederacy of nations aligned by common economic and geopolitical goals. It doesn’t have an executive, legislature or judiciary at its disposal because, unlike the EU, it’s not an independent political body in its own right. Agreements are reached through consensus between the governments of the respective nations, be they authoritarian (in the case of Myanmar) or democratic. The ASEAN Summit — the annual council of ASEAN political leaders — cannot command; it can only advise, as evidenced by its failure to resolve the civil war in Myanmar since 2021, hence its reputation as a “talk shop” that issues vague statements, as opposed to affecting real change.
And, even when an agreement is reached, ASEAN, unlike the EU, doesn’t have a sprawling bureaucracy at its disposal to implement whatever changes are agreed upon. Considering the size of the collective ASEAN population — almost 700 million versus the EU’s comparatively meagre 400 million — the challenges of implementing an overhaul of the visa systems of six nations increase tenfold. While the EU employs over 46,000 people in public roles, the ASEAN secretariat — responsible for administering collaboration between nations — employs only 300 staff members.
If the Schengen agreement took four years to implement, from start to finish, one can only speculate as to how long it would take an ASEAN Schengen to come into effect. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, for example, took several years of tender negotiations before the ratification process could even begin in 2020 and was signed just over one year later. The ASEAN Convention on Counter Terrorism (2007), which enhanced information sharing, took four years.
Such a transnational scheme, even within Schengen, is difficult to maintain, where member states vary in how much they comply with EU data protection standards. Different nations apply rules differently. Italy has been criticised for inconsistent biometric identification procedures at border control, while the French system is racked with delays and red tape. Romania has few, if any, biometric requirements upon entry, while Portugal destroys all biometric data immediately. If this is the case with a supranational body like the EU — which has the power to enforce legislation — what would it be like for a more informal structure like ASEAN?
Such a scheme would require a total overhaul of the existing structure of ASEAN: a string of separate multilateral agreements ratified and integrated into the countries’ individual legal systems — all of which differ constitutionally. The upskilling of border officials from each country. A supranational regulatory system that can provide impartial oversight. And, most importantly of all, a common data-sharing infrastructure similar to the EU’s SIS (Schengen Information System) — a vast database that all member state border officials can consult and use, containing passport information, and, since 2013, fingerprints and photographs.
Is ASEAN Ready?
Manually monitoring the movement of people is difficult, and it’s open to debate whether the ASEAN nations are ready for such a scheme, a region defined by extreme technological disparity between member nations. Singapore is one of the world’s leading lights of technological progress, while Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar suffer from some of the lowest levels of tech integration and digital literacy.
The outbreak of COVID-19 was a case in point. The ASEAN countries had no coherent approach to data collection and reporting, with some failing to present their findings in a machine-readable format. The Cambodian healthcare sector still relies on paper-based reporting, and most of its public sector is held together by a patchwork of fragmented data systems. Vietnam lacks comprehensive data privacy regulations to protect individuals.
This has real-world repercussions. By opening their borders, nations make themselves vulnerable to other countries’ problems, best seen in EU governments’ response to the migrant crisis by tightening border controls. The same is true of ASEAN, to this day. When Cambodia recently cracked down on gambling, Thailand experienced an influx of Chinese citizens, who brought with them a lot of ‘grey money’ intertwined with organised crime, drug smuggling and cybercrime.
Attempts have been made, regionally, to rectify the poor level of data-sharing between ASEAN nations, with the creation of CERT (Computer Emergency Response Team), a scheme to facilitate information sharing between nations. Though it hasn’t been created yet, Singapore has made steps with other states to help begin this process.
Building a secure infrastructure
A robust security system will be an essential component of such a scheme. Southeast Asia is increasingly a target for cybercriminals — especially Chinese hackers, who hacked databases and stole critical email information between 2019 and 2022 from the governments of Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia and Myanmar. A database like this, containing personal information on millions of individuals, will always be a target. Even the SIC is not immune to it, considering that hackers recently succeeded in downloading personal data from the Dutch central office. Building such a system may not be as difficult as one might imagine, considering that there’s already a precedent in the ASEAN Convention on Counter Terrorism (2007), which enhanced information sharing between member states.
Overcoming corruption and conflict
Those are only the potential external threats. Corruption remains a significant problem in some ASEAN countries, particularly those that may be included on the scheme. Cambodia, for instance, is the world’s 22nd most corrupt country, where 37% of public service users bribed an official this year. Myanmar has been locked into a bloody civil war since the 2021 coup d’état, and it’s unlikely that UK Government travel advice — warning UK citizens not to go there — will change anytime soon.
While the visa proposal was greeted with enthusiasm, relations between ASEAN nations are far from rosy. As recently as 2011, there were outbreaks of violence on the Thai-Cambodian border, resulting from longstanding territorial disputes.
Signs of Hope for an ASEAN Schengen?
At first glance, the scheme’s future doesn’t look stable. The scheme’s great salesman, Srettha Thavisin, was recently removed from office by the high court for appointing a lawyer who had served prison time, and his political party was dissolved for its anti-monarchical stance.
That doesn’t mean this is over. It’s the beginning. His successor is the daughter of Thaksin, Thailand’s kingmaker — the former PM overthrown in 2005 by a military coup, a telecoms billionaire whose influence in Thai elections remains strong.
A glimmer of hope lies in the ten-point plan recently published by the new PM — full of ideas found in the manifesto of her predecessor. The digital wallet scheme, for example, and “a restructured visa application process” to boost Thailand’s ailing economy.
An ‘ASEAN Schengen’ visa scheme might take years to fully realise — but its effect would be transformative.
