Apologies to all the folks whose words I’ve expropriated for this piece with insufficient attribution – mostly from Wikipedia and ASEAN sources. It’s already taken three days to piece this essay together and I’m trying to get it published while the dateline is still good! Just ONE more editing pass.

26 June 2019 – This is an appropriate time to visit a little-known and -acknowledged regional international community being developed in Southeast Asia: ASEAN. Last Sunday (23 June 2019) marked the 34th meeting of the ASEAN Summit in Bangkok, Thailand

ASEAN was established on 8 August 1967 with the signing of the ASEAN Declaration (Bangkok Declaration) by the five founding member states, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Five additional member states – Brunei Darussalam (1984), Viet Nam (1995), Lao PDR and Myanmar (1997), and Cambodia (1999) – joined later to complete the ten member states of ASEAN today. An eleventh nation, Timor-Leste (in English: East Timor) has applied for membership.

The creation of ASEAN was originally motivated by a common fear of communism among the original five founding member states. ASEAN achieved greater cohesion in the mid-1970s following a change in the international balance of power after the end of the Vietnam War in 1975. The region’s dynamic economic growth during the 1970s strengthened the organization, enabling ASEAN to adopt a unified response to Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia in 1979.

ASEAN’s first summit meeting, held in Bali, Indonesia in 1976, resulted in an agreement on several industrial projects and the signing of a Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, and a Declaration of Concord.

The end of the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s allowed ASEAN countries to exercise greater political independence in the region, and in the 1990s ASEAN emerged as a leading voice on regional trade and security issues.

ASEAN has a total population of 642 million people, which is nearly double that of the United States (327 million), and twenty-five percent larger than that of the European Union (513 million). Its average annual income per person, however, is only $4,308.00, putting it between the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Mauritania in the Western Sahara as far as average wealth per person is concerned. That means its people still have a long way to go! Its GDP growth rate, however, is 5.3% per annum, which is comparable to that of Egypt or Pakistan and ahead of the average for even emerging and developing countries.

Why Do We Care?

Why should Americans care about ASEAN?

First, it has aspirations to be a regional intergovernmental organization similar to the European Union in an region where the United States has economic and political interests. Their charter specifically calls for adherence to basic principles in line with those of the United States and other Western democracies. Notably the ASEAN charter specifically calls for adherence to democratic principles and maintaining the region as a nuclear-free zone.

Second, as a large and (aspirationally) politically and economically cohesive regional intergovernmental organization, ASEAN can provide a large and (again aspirationally) economically powerful ally in Southeast Asia to counterbalance Chinese efforts to extend its hegemony in the region. Especially, their actions reveal a desire to cooperate with the United States and its allies. For example, the charter refers in numerous places to working with United Nations principles and protocols, and establishes English as the ASEAN working language.

Organization

The ASEAN Community is comprised of three “pillars:” the ASEAN Political-Security Community, the ASEAN Economic Community and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community. Each pillar has its own Blueprint, and, together with the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI) Strategic Framework and IAI Work Plan Phase II (2009-2015), they form the Roadmap for an ASEAN Community.

The figure below shows ASEAN’s top organization levels. At the top is the ASEAN Summit, comprised of the heads of state or government of the member states. By charter, they meet together twice a year, hosted by the member state holding the ASEAN Chairmanship, which cycles through the member states. At present, that is Thailand (Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha), so the latest meeting was held on 23 June 2019 in the Thai capital, Bangkok.

At the next level, ASEAN is divided into three Community Councils that represent the three pillars of ASEAN activity:

1. The ASEAN Political-Security Community Council

2. The ASEAN Economic Community Council

3. The ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Council

Each of the three Community Councils has their own makeup and sphere of activity. The ASEAN Coordinating Council, for example, comprises the Foreign Ministers of the ASEAN member states and meets at least twice a year, not only to prepare the meetings of the ASEAN Summit, but to undertake other tasks provided for in the Charter, or for such other functions as may be assigned by the ASEAN Summit. For example, the Coordinating Council coordinates implementation of agreements and decisions of the ASEAN Summit.

In order to realize the objectives of each of the three pillars of the ASEAN Community, each ASEAN Community Council ensures the implementation of the relevant decisions of the ASEAN Summit; coordinates the work of the different sectors under its purview; ensures implementation of Summit decisions on issues that cut across the other Community Councils; and submits reports and recommendations to the ASEAN Summit on matters under its purview.

Each member state designates its own national representatives for each ASEAN Community Council. In addition, each ASEAN member state establishes an ASEAN National Secretariat that serves as a national focal point, the repository of information on all ASEAN matters at the national level, coordinates the implementation of ASEAN decisions at the national level, coordinates and supports the national preparations of ASEAN meetings, promotes ASEAN identity and awareness at the national level, and contributes to ASEAN community building.

Political-Security Community

ASEAN member states pledge to rely exclusively on peaceful processes in the settlement of intra-regional differences and with regard to their security. They are fundamentally linked to one another and bound by geographic location, as well as by a common vision and objectives.

The ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC) aims to ensure that countries in the region live at peace with one another and with the world in a just, democratic and harmonious environment. The APSC Blueprint envisages ASEAN to be a rules-based community of shared values and norms; a cohesive, peaceful, stable and resilient region with shared responsibility for comprehensive security; and a dynamic and outward-looking region in an increasingly integrated and interdependent world. The APSC’s normative activities include: political development; shaping and sharing of norms; conflict prevention; conflict resolution; post-conflict peace building; and implementing mechanisms.

Economic Community

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) has a Consolidated Strategic Action Plan (CSAP) that includes strategic measures in the AEC Blueprint 2025 that takes into account the relevant sector work plans, and is reviewed periodically to account for developments in each sector.

The inaugural issue of the ASEAN Economic Integration Brief (AEIB) was released on 30 June 2017. The AEIB provides regular updates on ASEAN economic integration progress and outcomes, and is a demonstration of ASEAN’s commitment to strengthen communication and outreach to raise stakeholder awareness of the AEC.

The ASEAN Good Regulatory Practice (GRP) Core Principles was adopted at the 50th AEM Meeting in 29 August 2018 and subsequently endorsed by the AEC Council. It provides a practical, non-binding set of principles to assist ASEAN member states to improve their regulatory practice and foster ASEAN-wide regulatory cooperation.

Socio-Cultural Community

At the heart of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) is the commitment to lift the quality of life of ASEAN peoples through cooperative activities that are people-oriented, people-centered, environmentally friendly, and geared toward the promotion of sustainable development through member states’ cooperation on a wide range of areas including: culture and information, education, youth and sports, health, social welfare and development, women and gender, rights of the women and children, labor, civil service, rural development and poverty eradication, environment, transboundary haze-pollution, disaster management and humanitarian assistance.

Free-Trade Zone

The AEC aims to “implement economic integration initiatives” to create a single market across ASEAN member states. Its blueprint, adopted during the 13th ASEAN Summit (2007) in Singapore, serves as a master plan guiding the establishment of the community. Its characteristics include a single market and production base, a highly competitive economic region, a region of fair economic development, and a region fully integrated into the global economy.

The areas of co-operation include human resources development; recognition of professional qualifications; closer consultation on macroeconomic and financial policies; trade financing measures; enhanced infrastructure and communications connectivity; development of electronic transactions through e-ASEAN; integrating industries across the region to promote regional sourcing; and enhancing private sector involvement.

The AEC is the embodiment of the ASEAN’s vision of “a stable, prosperous and highly competitive ASEAN economic region in which there is a free flow of goods, services, investment and a freer flow of capital, equitable economic development and reduced poverty and socio-economic disparities.”

The average economic growth of member states from 1989 to 2009 was between 3.8% and 7%. This was greater than the average growth of APEC, which was 2.8%. The ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), established on 28 January 1992, includes a Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) to promote the free flow of goods between member states.

ASEAN member states have made significant progress in the lowering of intra-regional tariffs through the CEPT. More than 99 percent of the products in Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, have been brought down to the 0-5 percent tariff range. ASEAN’s newer members, namely Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Viet Nam, are not far behind.

ASEAN member states have also resolved to work on the elimination of non-tariff barriers, which includes, among others, the process of verification and cross-notification; updating the working definition of Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs)/Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs); the setting-up of a database on all NTMs maintained by member states; and the eventual elimination of unnecessary and unjustifiable non-tariff measures.

I led this essay off with the comment that ASEAN does not seem to get the attention it deserves, at least in U.S. national media. Certainly, U.S. President Donald Trump seems to feel it’s not worth a tweet. The closest I was able to find with a quick Internet search was a report that he insulted Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte before meeting him on the sidelines of the Winter 2017 ASEAN Summit meeting!

That said, I must report that I became interested in ASEAN through a segment in Fareed Zacharia’s GPS show on CNN. So, not everybody is completely ignoring what I’ve come to realize is potentially an important regional intergovernmental organization.

I encourage you to learn more about ASEAN by visiting the various links peppering this column. Maybe together we can generate more interest in what could be a powerful U.S. ally in the Eastern Pacific.