ASEAN in 2010

Abstract

As usual, 2010 was an extremely busy year for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Not only was this busyness reflected in the usual flurry of communiques, declarations, and statements emanating from the numerous summit meetings and ministerial gatherings throughout the year. It was also manifested in the innumerable meetings and cooperative activities among hundreds of officials, working groups, task forces, and non-state groups on a dizzying variety of subjects. These subjects ranged from political and security issues (traditional and nontraditional) and measures for regional economic integration to the environment, energy and climate change, drugand people-trafficking, education and health. They took place in a variety of ASEAN-centred and ASEAN-initiated frameworks and forums. These frameworks and forums included the ten-member ASEAN itself, ASEAN's cooperation with its ten Dialogue Partners (Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Russia, and the United States), the twenty-seven-state ASEAN Regional Forum, and ASEAN Plus Three (China, Japan, and South Korea), together and one at a time. The meetings and other activities also took place in the five-yearold East Asia Summit, again collectively and individually, now including Russia and the United States, as well as the ten ASEAN countries, the three Northeast Asian states, Australia, India, and New Zealand. Some of them produced practical agreements and decisions to take collective action. All served to build mutual understanding and confidence and, at the very least, promoted valuable contacts, networking, and even personal friendships. However, 2010 was also unprecedented in ASEAN's history. It was the first time that the period of the ASEAN chairmanship coincided with the calendar year. This was as prescribed in the new ASEAN Charter, which had gone into effect in December 2008. Thus, ASEAN operated under Vietnam's chairmanship