The Tantu Panggĕlaran (TP) is an Old Javanese prose text. The opening sentence tells us that it contains “tales of the island of Java from ancient times” (kacarita nika nuṣa Jawa ring aśitkala). These tales can be described as “myth and legend”, as an indication of what their varied content covers. In a classic anthropological sense, the TP contains accounts of origins (“charters”) relating to features of the natural world and the social order, culminating in its message of the continuity of religious institutions (maṇḍala), from divine actors to human ones. In this way it moves into quasi-history, conveying important themes for such communities located in the countryside of Java, especially on mountains. However, the TP is not history, and also not fiction, but intends to preserve and transmit aspects of life and belief for its audience, in the form of a literary work, stemming from a specific spiritual tradition, which can only be understood by reference to the geographical, social and historical setting of Java.

The TP was edited and translated into Dutch by Th. Pigeaud in 1924, as his dissertation at the University of Leiden (with Professor G.A.J. Hazeu as promotor). Pigeaud presented a critical edition. There is a large degree of variation among the manuscripts he used. Hence his choice to follow one manuscript in all details, including spelling, namely his A, although it was also necessary to use readings from B, in order to produce a usable text. Pigeaud says that thanks to the helpfulness of the archaeologist P.V. van Stein Callenfels he was in a position to consult these two manuscripts from the latter's collection; these were lontar (palm leaf) manuscripts. He mentions their dimensions, but does not say where Van Stein Callenfels obtained them, or what became of them after he consulted them. They have not yet been identified in the Leiden or Jakarta manuscript collections. This is most unfortunate. Manuscript C is the Leiden Cod. Or 2212, while D and E are from the later Van der Tuuk Collection, also in the Leiden University Library, and are much less reliable, perhaps even representing a different redaction. All variants were faithfully listed in footnotes.

The hermitages of Bulon, Kupang, Huluwanwa and Pacira

Having fixed the Mahāmeru firmly on Java, Bhaṭāra Guru next proceeded to establish four principal hermitages (katyāgan) at Bulon, Kupang, Huluwanwa and Pacira. These same places (though in a different order) are mentioned in canto 78: 7 of Prapañca's Deśawarṇana, where they are described as the katyāgan of the caturāśrama. In the same way that the maṇḍala network in Java was derived from four sects (caturbhasma), so the katyāgan, or “places of recluses”, were apparently identified with four parent communities. The hermitage of Bulon must for the time being remain a mystery, as the name is not mentioned in any other inscriptional or literary source known to me, and Prapañca's brief description offers no further clue. The site of Kupang, however, can almost certainly be associated with the present river Kupang, and specifically the settlement of that name on its western bank at Brokoh, a village lying 10 km south of the coastal town of Batang in central Java.

The archaeological site at Kupang reveals the remnants of a terraced sanctuary beside the river, aligned to the mountains in the south. Although the original structure is barely visible today, a surviving statue known as Watu Gajah (“elephant stone”) is of particular interest. Formerly consisting of two parts, one of which has disappeared, the stone is thought to depict the Karivarada (or Varadaraja), the “deliverance of the elephant Gajendra by the god Wiṣṇu”, as related in the Bhagavata Purāṇa (see Figure 13).

This evidence allows us to take a step further and identify these remains with the Kupang mentioned by the pilgrim Bujangga Manik on his journey eastward through central Java. It might even be possible to connect the site with a village named Kupang recorded in the late ninth century charter of Er Hangat (Ratanira), issued by the king Dyah Tagwas Śrī Jayakirtiwardhana (r. 885).

May there be no hindrance.

This is the holy Tantu Panggĕlaran. May your lordships pay close attention to it, all those who may wish to know about it. Come, enjoy listening to the tales of the island of Java in olden times. Human beings did not exist, and in particular the holy Mahāmeru was not on the island of Java. However, it was located on the holy Maṇḍalagiri, a mountain great and high, which served as the centre of the world, and was situated in the land of Jambuḍipa. For this reason the island of Java was unsteady, constantly moving up and down, as there was no Mandaraparwata, not to mention human beings. For this reason Lord Jagatpramāṇa arose, and promptly performed yoga on the island of Yawaḍipa together with Lady Parameśwarī. For this reason we have what is called Ḍihyang now, as a result of the Lord's yoga, the story goes.

The Lord performed yoga for a long time, and sent the gods Brahmā and Wiṣṇu to make human beings. Now the gods Brahmā and Wiṣṇu agreed, and made human beings. They kneaded lumps of clay and formed them into humans of perfect beauty, in appearance like the gods. The male human was the product of the god Brahmā's work, and the female was made by the god Wiṣṇu, both of perfect beauty. This is the reason we have what is called Mount Pawinihan now, a result of the gods Brahmā and Wiṣṇu making human beings, as the story goes.

The products of the gods Brahmā and Wiṣṇu making human beings were brought together, and they were joined in mutual love. They had children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, great-great-grandchildren, muning and anggas. Reproduction was the task of human beings. But they had no houses, male and female went naked in the forest, they broke sticks (by hand), as there was no other way to do it, and nothing to imitate. They had no loin-cloth, no lower garment, no shawl, no bathing cloth, no girdle, no crest and no scissors. They spoke but did not know what to say, as they did not understand language. They ate any leaves and fruits. Such is what people did in ancient times.

For this reason all the gods gathered and came together, and went to attend upon Lord Guru. Lord Jagatnātha directed the gods to establish order in Yawaḍipāntara.

The Paris Agreement, which was signed on 27 January 1973, was the outcome of a fierce military struggle and an effective and creative negotiating strategy. By providing for the complete withdrawal of US troops from South Vietnam, the Agreement seriously weakened the Saigon regime and created favourable conditions for North Vietnam and the Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG) to strengthen their position, thus creating the potentials for a final victory. Against this background, this chapter deals with relations between Vietnam ASEAN from roughly 1972 to 1978 and examines how the Paris Agreement and other factors influenced the worldview of Hanoi, and as a result, its policies towards ASEAN in a crucial period.

NEW PRIORITIES GIVEN TO REGIONAL POLICY

Following the Paris Agreement, a number of countries, including ASEAN member states, proceeded towards establishing diplomatic relations with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV) and the PRG. This gave rise to changes, still embryonic, in Hanoi's perception and subsequent policy directions with regard to Southeast Asia.

Firstly, there was a new perception of a higher stature of Vietnam in its relations with other countries in the region. A report of 1973 said that “the stature and influence enjoyed by the DRV and the status and prestige of the PRG have never been stronger”, and analysed this prestige in a number of aspects: Vietnam became a new model for local revolutionary movements as its performance and its experiences

Moreover, it was thought that Vietnam had become an important actor in the regional politics. According to one of the documents, “many states have considered Vietnam ‘a superpower’, with ‘a great stature’ and influence in Asia and the Pacific; peace-loving countries consider that Vietnam is in a unique position to help ease world tensions; and the countries that hold great ambitions regard us as a political opponent.” As a result, “activities at the regional level will be meaningless without the participation by Vietnam.”

When Hanoi considered joining ASEAN, the organization had been seen as one of the “most successful experiments in regionalism in the developing world.” But from the mainstream liberal institutionalist point of view, even now, ASEAN is not an exemplary international organization with strong institutional frameworks. ASEAN is a loose organization and its decisions, which are made by consensus, are not legally binding. In addition, ASEAN cooperation is not about collective defence or collective security. Moreover, ASEAN was not instrumental in supporting the economic development of Vietnam, and as the 1997 financial crisis unfolded, ASEAN itself experienced serious economic problems.

These facts would lead one to the following question: What had Hanoi known about the organizational structures and institutional arrangementsof ASEAN, about its principles and norms, its cooperative projects, and especially its limitations before it decided to join the organization? The answer to this question may help clarify several points. For example, if Hanoi had believed that ASEAN had serious economic and security limitations, it would have surely been more unwilling to consider membership; or if ASEAN were supranational in nature, Hanoi would have been more reluctant to join the organization; and if it had not been easy to understand the organizational structure of ASEAN and its working procedures, and if membership had entailed major political and economic changes, the process of joining ASEAN and adjusting to the new cooperative environment would have been longer. In short, this chapter will examine whether Hanoi had a good understanding of ASEAN before it decided to join the organization, and to what extent this understanding contributed to the decision in favour of, and the subsequent preparations for, Vietnam's membership of ASEAN.

THE CHRONOLOGY OF JOINING ASEAN

According to a MOFA Southeast Asian and South Pacific Affairs Department report, by mid-June 1991, the decision to join the Bali Treaty had been made, and Hanoi officially stated that it was ready to accede to the Treaty. The department's activities, listed in weekly working schedules, showed that the accession was one of the main focuses during this time.

From the time of the 1986 Thirteenth Politburo Resolution that stated, “We will support peaceful coexistence between the Indochinese and ASEAN countries and will not see relations between Vietnam, Laos, and Kampuchea and ASEAN countries as socialism versus capitalism” to Hanoi's enhanced interaction and socialization with ASEAN countries between 1990 and 1994, the following factors seemed to have influenced the Vietnam-ASEAN relations in a decisive way.

• (1) The disintegration of the Soviet bloc and the collapse of the Soviet Union, which made Vietnam's search for a new identity to protect its survival of the communist regime in Vietnam an urgent task.

• (2) Beijing's rejection of Hanoi's proposal to establish a new mode of Sino-Vietnamese relations based on communist identity, which made the search for a new and non-communist identity imperative.

• (3) New understanding and awareness of ASEAN's importance to the overall developmental and foreign policy of Vietnam as well as the enhancement of the new posture of Vietnam in its regional and international relations.

• (4) New awareness of commonalities between Vietnam and ASEAN countries in terms of history and culture as well as developmental goals and regime survival, gained through a process of intense interactions and socialization between Vietnam and ASEAN member states.

These are the four main factors, which formed a “matrix of dynamics” that involved new ideas, choices, and processes and in fact informed the decision by Hanoi first to improve relations with ASEAN countries and then to join ASEAN.

At first glance, it might seem that Hanoi's policymakers based their decision to join ASEAN on the considerations that attached great importance to nationalism, and national and regime interests. Yet a closer look suggests a more complicated picture. As previous chapters have shown, Hanoi did not hope, and could not hope, to turn ASEAN into a military alliance and help to improve its position vis-à-vis Beijing. Moreover, there was no substantial surge in economic and political gains in the period between the improvement of Vietnam-ASEAN relations and Vietnam's membership in ASEAN. Further, additional economic pressures and challenges were exerted on Vietnam due to its ASEAN membership.

In the absence of a detailed understanding of the ASEAN working procedures and principles as well as institutional arrangements to promote cooperation, the decision to join ASEAN was, according to many officials whom the author interviewed, “the political will” of Hanoi to further commit itself to the region. What then was the nature of this political will? The decision to seek an early admission to the organization created additional pressures on the bureaucratic system, and brought about “new difficulties and challenges in the course of economic development”. Moreover, as discussed earlier, ASEAN membership did not ensure specific security benefits for Vietnam. What then were the real purposes of Vietnam's membership in ASEAN? This chapter will further trace the official policy statements as well as the internal debates in Hanoi related to the question of ASEAN membership. Hopefully, tracing the internal debates among Hanoi's decision-makers on foreign policy in general and on the ASEAN membership in particular would shed light on the abovementioned questions.

MORE ABOUT THE INTERNAL DEBATES

Only fourteen months elapsed between the February 1993 statement of “joining ASEAN at an appropriate time” and the April 1994 statement about “seeking an early membership”. Then after another three months, that is in July 1994, Hanoi took the decision to join ASEAN. These developments showed that perceived differences between Vietnam and ASEAN did not prevent Hanoi from making the decision for an early ASEAN membership. And since the process of joining ASEAN was not so “long and complicated” as had been predicted, we should look for more a plausible logic in the way Hanoi perceived the similarities between Vietnam and ASEAN as the underlying reasons for Vietnam to join the organization.

SIMILARITY IN POLITICAL STRUCTURES AND PRACTICES

National interests, according to the classical and structural realist as well as liberal institutionalist approaches, relate to the very survival of states existing in the anarchical environment of international politics that creates continuous wars and conflicts. Yet, the nature of international politics in the Third World has more to do with the survival of the ruling regimes that act in the name of their countries.

THE INTERNAL DEBATES

The Seventh CPV National Congress (July 1991) officially proclaimed, “Vietnam wants to be a friend of all members of the world community which strive for peace, national independence, and development.” The Second and Third CPV Central Committee Plenums, which met in January and June 1992 respectively, focused on developing relations with major powers as well as countries in the region. The Third CPV CC Plenum Resolution gave instructions on how to conduct Vietnam-ASEAN relations, “[We should] as an immediate step, accede to the Bali Treaty, take part in ASEAN consultative forums, and actively conduct research on how to expand our relations with ASEAN in the future.” However, immediately after the accession to the Bali Treaty, Hanoi still did not feel ready for ASEAN membership. Responding to a MOFA Southeast Asian and South Pacific Affairs (SEA/SPA) Department report on Vietnam-ASEAN relations which suggested that the Politburo should provide further instructions on the question of ASEAN membership, the Politburo held a meeting in November 1992 and concluded that “more research should be done”.

In February 1993, Hanoi officially stated, “Vietnam is ready to join ASEAN at an appropriate time.” In mid-September 1993, a meeting was convened by Hong Ha, Director of the Commission for External Relation of the CPV Central Committee (CERC), with the participation of representatives from MOFA, the Ministry of National Defence, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the National Borders Committee to work on a policy announcement that General Secretary Do Muoi was going to make during his visit to Malaysia in October. The question of ASEAN membership was of course brought up. Transcripts of the meeting revealed that the participants were in favour of joining ASEAN and proposed that Do Muoi should state that “Vietnam is ready to join ASEAN”, thus dropping the “at an appropriate time” phrase. When the visit took place, Do Muoi announced a four-point policy concerning Vietnam-ASEAN relations that stressed, “Vietnam will increase multifaceted cooperation with individual neighbouring countries as well as with ASEAN as a regional organization.” Yet, the sentence of “Vietnam is ready to join ASEAN at an appropriate time” remained unchanged in the four-point policy.

In what was termed the first round of reconciliation, there were improvements in the Vietnam-ASEAN relationship in the 1975–78 period. Yet, they were not enough to construct a cooperative relationship between Vietnam and ASEAN. What was missing were mutual trust, Vietnamese non-recognition of ASEAN, and in particular its view about a new role in regional politics.

The previous chapter has analysed the reasons for Hanoi's hardening attitude towards ASEAN. As a result, from 1975 to early 1977, Hanoi adopted a less than friendly attitude towards ASEAN and its member states, in spite of various advances by the latter, and specifically a proposal for Vietnam to accede the TAC. But from the end of 1977, Hanoi took the initiative in improving its relations with ASEAN as witnessed by the July 1977 visit by Deputy Foreign Minister Phan Hien to ASEAN countries and the start of negotiations with Indonesia on sea boundaries in November 1977. In addition, the December 1977 visit by Foreign Minister Nguyen Duy Trinh to ASEAN countries was marked by the conclusion of several economic agreements and the agreement for the establishment of Thai and Vietnamese embassies in Hanoi and Bangkok. Further, in September 1978, Prime Minister Pham Van Dong visited some ASEAN countries and promised to refrain from supporting local rebellions, interfering in their internal affairs, and using force against them. All these actions should not be seen as a breakthrough in Vietnam-ASEAN relations as there was still an absence of trust on both sides and Hanoi sought improvement in relations mainly because of the rising tension and hostility in its relations with Beijing and the Khmer Rouge.

Indeed, during the visit of Prime Minister Pham Van Dong, there was no frank and extensive exchange of views on the Khmer Rouge issue and how it should be solved. Instead, Hanoi offered a Friendship Treaty, a move to which ASEAN countries were not eager to respond, to forestall possible reaction from ASEAN towards its action in Kampuchea. Thereafter, as soon as Vietnamese troops entered Kampuchea, Thailand allied itself with the PRC to oppose the Vietnamese move and could subsequently rally the support of all other ASEAN countries to its cause. As a result, for more than ten years, confrontation took place between Vietnam and ASEAN countries and Southeast Asia was divided into two opposing blocs.

In late 2019 Vietnam assumed the ASEAN Chairmanship and introduced the theme of a “Cohesive and Responsive ASEAN”. On this occasion, Vietnam's Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc stressed,

Such an upbeat tone about ASEAN reflected a general consensus in Vietnam that the decision to join ASEAN in 1995 had been a right foreign policy decision of great strategic importance. Moreover, Hanoi has attached greater importance to ASEAN. On 27 August 2019, Nguyen Xuan Phuc told ASEAN Secretary General Lim Jock Hoi that Vietnam always considered ASEAN as one of the most important pillars of its foreign policy. A draft of the Political Report to be introduced at the Communist Party of Vietnam Congress in first quarter of 2021 confirmed the established policy line that Vietnam will be “proactive and responsible with other ASEAN members in the building a strong ASEAN Community and maintaining the central role of ASEAN in regional security architectures”. In short, in retrospect, after twenty-five years, Hanoi's decision to join ASEAN was recognized as the vintage one.

But it had taken almost the same amount of time for Hanoi to change its attitude towards the organization. From the policy of denial, Hanoi gradually adopted the one of peacefully coexisting with, and ultimately embracing ASEAN. Following the open-door reforms programme introduced in 1986 (widely known as Doi Moi), Vietnam began to develop relations with ASEAN. The process of Vietnam-ASEAN rapprochement culminated with Vietnam's signing the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in 1991 and its admission to membership of the organization in 1995—the only formal international organization that the country entered since the end of the Cold War. Myanmar and Laos entered ASEAN in 1997 and Cambodia in 1999. It was acknowledged that after East Timor gained full independence, it too would seek membership in ASEAN.