Since its founding in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has been an increasingly large part of the life of Southeast Asia, although most people in the region know very little about it. ASEAN has helped bring peace and stability to the region. It has successfully engaged the world's major powers, in East Asia and beyond. ASEAN has taken steps to integrate the regional economy as an important means of cooperatively improving the region's competitiveness, attracting investments, generating jobs, raising incomes, and lowering costs and prices. ASEAN has also formed networks for dealing with regional problems like communicable diseases, environmental degradation, and transnational crime. An essential part of the Southeast Asia Background Series, this book seeks to shed some light on what ASEAN is all about
The year 2017 marks 50 years since the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was formed under the Bangkok Declaration on 8 August 1967. The five founding members, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand, envisioned political and economic cooperation that would promote stability and prosperity for each country and ultimately a sense of shared culture and identity for the region as a whole. Over the past 50 years, the association has not only withstood the pressures of deep transformations resulting from the significant changes in the region but has in fact doubled in size to its current 10 members by accepting new members, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Viet Nam. With the passing of a half-century of working together, a key issue now revolves around the question of shared identity and belonging. The region is home to many cultures and languages as well as great disparities in the member states' economies and levels of development. ASEAN has provided a platform for continuous discussion between leaders, which has helped the region address these disparities and adapt to the constantly changing circumstances. But what do the people of ASEAN think about ASEAN? What are their hopes and expectations for ASEAN as a region? Are they aware of how ASEAN institutions work on their behalf? And are ASEAN programmes and initiatives addressing the key concerns of ASEAN people?
The contributions of Alice D. Ba, Mark Beeson, and Anja Jetschke and Patrick Theiner to the discussion about how to understand and explain ASEAN as a regional organization raise significant issues. Most importantly, their ideas extend our ability as scholars and commentators to productively debate and evaluate the institutional developments and policies of ASEAN and, indeed, all regional organizations. (Pac Rev/GIGA)
ASEAN -- Contents -- About the Author -- Chapter 1: Beginnings and Expansion -- Chapter 2: ASEAN and Regional Security -- Chapter 3: ASEAN and the Regional Economy -- Chapter 4: Working Together for the Common Good -- Chapter 5: Relations with the Rest of the World -- Chapter 6: Building a Community -- References.
The nineties of the last century began as an agreeable time for the three Indochina states, at least as far as foreign policy and the options for joining subregional and regional FTAs were concerned. After China had succeeded in getting leverage on the ASEAN however, they became more and more squeezed into the Chinese corner, particularly after having signed the China-ASEAN FTA (CAFTA) Agreement with Beijing in November 2002. Soon afterwards not only the volume of trade, but also the political two-way-relationship between ASEAN and China began to increase in a much faster pace than those between ASEAN and Japan or South Korea, to say nothing of other competitors like India, Australia, New Zealand or Russia. Multilateral approaches became, in other words, more and more overshadowed by bilateral FTAs and in-group-tendencies. This development was detested not only by outside-countries like Japan, South Korea or India, but even by ASEAN-insiders like Indonesia and Vietnam. The growing uneasiness with China's way of selfishly embracing ASEAN resulted in the first East Asian Summit (EAS), held in Kuala Lumpur in December 2005, which was enforced by several governments to be dissatisfied with Chinas's unilaterialism, and which reopened the discussion on the issue of multilateralisation and on extending the number of participants to a ASEAN+6- (including China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia, New Zealand) or even to a ASEAN+7-Community (inclusive Russia). Regarding the future, the participants decided that the EAS should serve as a platform for dialogue on substituting the notorious CAFTA by EAFTA (East Asian FTA) and on laying foundations even for an East Asian Community, which of course is still very far away and embryonic, at least for the time beeing.
The surge in free trade agreements (FTAs) in East Asia since the Asian financial crisis has prompted a lively debate on the characteristics, impact, and future path of FTAs in the region. To inform the ongoing debate, this paper maps the salient characteristics of East Asian FTAs using a new FTA database, identifies several key issues to be addressed, and explores economic effects using computable general equilibrium (CGE) analysis. The paper suggests that WTO-plus elements need to be further expanded and the negative aspects of FTAs be minimized. The paper argues that consolidation of multiple and overlapping FTAs into a single East Asian FTA can help mitigate the harmful 'noodle bowl' effects of different rules of origin (ROOs) and standards and that the consolidation at the ASEAN+6 level would yield the largest gains to East Asia among plausible regional trade arrangements-while the losses to non-members would be relatively small. For such consolidation to occur, ASEAN must act as the regional 'hub' by further deepening ASEAN economic integration, the plus-three countries (PRC, Japan, and Korea) need to collaborate more closely, and India needs to pursue further structural reforms. Furthermore, substantial international support is required to strengthen the supply-side capacity of poorer ASEAN countries-including the building of trade-supporting infrastructure (transport, energy, and telecommunications)-so that they can take advantage of integrated regional markets and narrow development gaps within ASEAN. Over time, it would be desirable for East Asia to strengthen economic ties with North America and Europe by connecting an ASEAN+6 FTA with NAFTA and the EU.