Association Of Southeast Asian Nations Essay ⋆ Business Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was established on August 8, 1967, with an initial membership of five countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and Thailand. Its formal establishment was announced by the Bangkok Declaration. The association has subsequently expanded to include Brunei (1984), Vietnam (1995), Laos (1997), Myanmar (1997), and Cambodia (1999). ASEAN aims to promote economic growth and peace in the region.

Nominal Gross Domestic Product was US$1,281.9 billion in 2007, and a total trade of about US$1,400 billion for all 10 members of ASEAN. The total population is over 566 million and the ASEAN member states cover a total area of 4.5 million sq. km.

The Bangkok Declaration incorporates statements concerned with the region’s economic growth, cultural development, security, technological, academic, and administrative development. ASEAN members are agreed to solve their differences through dialogue and in the spirit of mutual accommodation.

The highest decision-making body of ASEAN is the meeting of ASEAN Heads of State, the ASEAN Annual Summit. The ASEAN ministerial meeting for foreign ministers and the ASEAN economic ministers’ meetings are also held annually. The meetings of these two bodies focus on defense and the environment and the region’s economy, respectively. ASEAN also provides a forum for discussion and decision making in the areas of energy, agriculture and forestry, tourism, and transport at a ministerial level. The secretariat was established by the ASEAN foreign ministers during the 1976 Bali Summit. The secretariat’s purview is to initiate, advise, coordinate, and implement ASEAN activities, using an annual operational budget funded through equal contribution of all ASEAN member countries.

Specialized bodies within ASEAN include the Agricultural Development Planning Centre, ASEAN-EC Management Centre, Centre for Energy, Earthquake Information Centre, Poultry Research and Training Centre, Regional Centre for Biodiversity Conservation, Rural Youth Development Centre, Specialized Meteorological Centre, Timber Technology Centre, Tourism Information Centre, and the University Network to promote cooperation among member countries.

There are three ASEAN Communities: the Security Community, Economic Community, and Sociocultural Community. The ASEAN Security Community aims to promote peace and harmony within the region. Its duties include political development, shaping and sharing of norms, conflict prevention, conflict resolution, post-conflict peace building, and implementing mechanisms components. The ASEAN Economic Community works toward establishing ASEAN as a single market and production base, and the ASEAN Socio-cultural Community aims at nurturing a community of nations, with caring societies and a common regional identity.

ASEAN was founded at a time of conflict in southeast Asia and was unavoidably divided by the two prevailing ideologies, exemplified in the two competing political entities, the Communist and the Western blocs. The establishment of ASEAN by five nonCommunist countries divided southeast Asia into two parts. However, ASEAN was not an anti-communist regional organization but a geographical body. The enlargement of ASEAN in the 1990s shows that those new members share the association’s commitment to regional peace and stability as a prerequisite for economic development, which is the top priority among members. This enlargement coincides with the fall of communism in eastern Europe. Political cooperation stressed the resolution of disputes negotiation and the benefits to be gained through peace and stability in the region.

ASEAN is not a homogeneous group. There are considerable differences among its member states with respect to size, history, and level of industrialization. The four new members—Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam—are still in the process of adjusting their economic policies. At one end of the scale, the wealthiest state is Singapore, with a per capita income more than 50 times that of Cambodia. In descending order, the per capita income of the other members starts with Brunei, and is followed by the four older members—Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Bringing up the economic rear are the remaining new members—Cambodia (as previously mentioned), Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam.

ASEAN aimed to create an ASEAN Economic Community through the ASEAN Free Trade Area in the Fourth ASEAN Summit, and the ASEAN Free Trade Area agreement was signed on January 28, 1992. The agreement is a common, external preferential tariff scheme to promote the free flow of goods within ASEAN. More than 90 percent of the total tariff lines in ASEAN are now included in the Common Effective Preferential Tariff Scheme, which covers manufactured and agricultural products.

From 2005, tariffs on 99 percent of the products in the inclusion list of the ASEAN six older members (Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand) have been reduced to less than 5 percent. For the other newer members, tariffs on about 80 percent in the inclusion list have also been reduced to less than 5 percent. Products in the inclusion list are those that have to undergo immediate liberalization through reduction in intraregional (CEPT) tariff rates, removal of quantitative restrictions, and other nontariff barriers. A zero tariff has to be achieved by older members by 2010 and by 2018 for the newer members. The ASEAN Free Trade Area is regarded as a tool to increase ASEAN members’ competitiveness in international markets and to attract foreign investment.

Members of ASEAN want to be free to implement independent policies without interference from their neighbors. Thus, noninterference, consensus, nonuse of force, and nonconfrontation became the principles of the organization. ASEAN is a setting in which leaders at the highest levels communicate with each other on regional affairs, prefer consensus decision making, and make nonbinding treaty plans. This kind of new culture is called the ASEAN Way. The ASEAN Way consists of beliefs, practices, structures, responses, and values commonly shared in ASEAN. It relies on the personal, often face-to-face approach in contrast with Western dependence on structures and functions.

International Network

The collective weight of ASEAN has made the association a force as an international bargaining tool. In the ASEAN regional forum and APEC, ASEAN has established its authority. However, ASEAN does face some difficulties in reaching consensus because of existing differences between old and new members.

ASEAN members also take part in discussions with nonmembers, with a view to promoting good external relationships. ASEAN established the Regional Forum in 1994 to maintain peace and stability in the region. The forum is an official dialogue in the Asia Pacific region, consisting of 27 participants—ASEAN members and others, such as Australia, Bangladesh, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, Mongolia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Russia, East Timor, the United States, and Sri Lanka. There are three stages: confidence-building measures, development of prevention diplomacy, and elaboration of approaches to conflicts. Prevention diplomacy includes efforts to build mutual trust and confidence between states, norms building, and enhancing channels of communication.

Bibliography:

Alexander C. Chandra, Indonesia and the ASEAN Free Trade Agreement: Nationalists and Regional Integration Strategy (Lexington Books, 2008);
ASEAN Secretariat, “ASEAN Overview,” www.asean.org (cited March 2009);
Denis Hew, Brick by Brick: The Building of an ASEAN Economic Community (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2007);
Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Know Your ASEAN (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies Publishing, 2007);
Estrella D. Solidum, The Politics of ASEAN (Eastern Universities Press, 2003);
Mya Than and Carolyn L. Gates, eds., ASEAN Enlargement: Impacts and Implications (Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 2001).

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