ASEAN Prospects for Regional Integration and the Implications for the ASEAN Legislative and Institutional Framework

Severino (2011) usefully informs us about what processes and issues the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has come through to promote regional economic cooperation and what obstacles ASEAN has to overcome in the process toward the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015. Severino succinctly describes a constellation of ASEAN economic cooperation schemes with concise explanations. His paper will serve as a useful historical guide in this field. This is an important exercise since evaluations of ASEAN's role in regional cooperation, including regional integration in a wider East Asia, are starkly divided among international relations specialists. Sound empirical research on ASEAN's effort to accomplish the AEC is required. One of the most controversial debates regarding ASEAN cooperation has evolved around the so-called ASEAN Way, its guiding principle which informally stipulates nonintervention, nonbinding, and consensus-based decision-making approaches to regional cooperation. For instance, the ASEAN Way is considered to be an impediment to a high level of regional institutionalization because it tends to avoid transnational cooperation which often requires the imposition of regulations and obligations on each state. The ASEAN Way is mainly applied to the political and security fields, but the basic elements can also be identified even in the economic field. Regional integration through Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) which involve legally binding provisions for the reciprocal exchange of preferences that discriminate against nonpartner countries is inharmonious with the ASEAN Way. It seems that a mismatch between ASEAN norms and economic integration practices has hindered the further institutionalization of ASEAN economic cooperation, something which Severino (2011) explains in a great deal of detail. One of the most important issues Severino raises concerns ASEAN's cooperation with external larger states and its role in a wider regional integration framework. This is because what has sustained ASEAN's need for the further promotion of integration schemes to accomplish economic growth is the need to secure external markets and elicit wider economic cooperation from larger extraregional states, rather than just sharing the benefits to be accrued from intraregional cooperation. In effect, nearly 80% of ASEAN's trade has been with non-ASEAN countries, and the exports of Indonesia and the Philippines to the ASEAN region are less than 10% and 6%, respectively, of their total exports, while the combined population of these two nations account for nearly 60% of the ASEAN total. Furthermore, 90% of foreign direct investment (FDI) has been from non-ASEAN economies. Although Severino consistently asserts that ASEAN has kept the major powers engaged in East Asia with itself as the hub and core, through the ASEAN Plus Three (ASEAN+3), FTAs, or the East Asia Summit (EAS), a step toward the commencement of negotiations of an East Asia FTA, be it ASEAN+3 or ASEAN Plus Six (ASEAN+6), depends on ASEAN's willingness to move beyond this framework. ASEAN's reluctance to move trade liberalization by itself, or perhaps its inability to take the political initiative toward wider regional integration as a unified player, can be found in the fact that it has never proposed an FTA to any of those “+1” partners. ASEAN as a loose group of relatively small economies inevitably depends on external economies for its growth through FDI and exports, but a view that its institutional significance would be diminished if a larger arrangement such as an East Asian FTA developed rapidly is ASEAN's major dilemma. The lack of willingness and capability on the part of ASEAN would be a major obstacle to the establishment of region-wide integration in East Asia, so the conclusion that ASEAN+1 FTAs would “serve as building blocks for freer trade in goods and services and for investment liberalization and facilitation in the region and in the world” (Severino, 2011, p. 30) needs further exploration. A major factor that has made it possible for ASEAN to host the ASEAN+3 Summits, an event which is often cited to validate ASEAN's greater role in East Asia, is competition between China and Japan because both regional powers, strongly suspicious of each other's initiatives, tended to have strong incentives to drive ASEAN to side with either of them. They avoided engaging in full-scale completion for regional hegemony, and what they tried to do was to attract ASEAN to their side through the financial support for ASEAN's integration effort, as a prerequisite for East Asian integration. In fact, despite the positive evaluations of expanded ASEAN machinery to socialize East Asia with the same norms and values that ASEAN has developed, it is still difficult to discern any official statement which clearly delineates what ASEAN actually does in this context (Jones & Smith, 2007). Now that trilateral cooperation among China, Japan, and Korea has started to flourish with the growth of trans- and intragovernmental networks, and that the negotiations for a trilateral investment treaty are almost complete and a feasibility study report for the trilateral FTA is expected to be submitted to the 2012 Summit, the establishment of an AEC by 2015 is ASEAN's urgent need. Yet, Severino (2011) demonstrates that ASEAN will face a thorny process to achieve this aim.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been hailed as one of the more successful regional organisations in the developing world, credited for maintaining regional peace and stabilit...

I. Introduction Southeast Asia comprises 10 states -- Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) serves as the primary mechanism for co-operation among those countries. ASEAN was formed on 8 August 1967 following the signing of the Bangkok Declaration. Its founding members are Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Brunei joined the grouping on 8 January 1984, followed by Vietnam on 28 July 1995. The association will not be complete without the inclusion of all Southeast Asian countries. In this connection, Myanmar and Laos joined the grouping on 23 July 1997 and Cambodia followed on 30 April 1999, meaning that ASEAN has become a truly pan-regional organization as was originally envisioned. For the past 30 years, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has successfully promoted international co-operation in Southeast Asia. ASEAN has promoted regional peace and stability, as best exemplified by its key role in ending the Cambodian civil war in 1991, and there is an extensive amount of mutual consultation and dialogue among the leaders and officials of the member states. Peace and stability have paved the way for rapid economic growth throughout the region. Discrete diplomacy, consensus and non-interference have been the cornerstones of the ASEAN approach.(1) ASEAN also maintains dialogue and good relations with other countries in the Asia-Pacific region and beyond. In fact, ASEAN is often held up as a model for effective regional political co-operation among developing countries. The challenge for ASEAN now is to duplicate its political success in the sphere of economic cooperation, where it has had much less success so far. According to Yeung, Perdikis and Kerr (1999) and Tan (1996), ASEAN's achievements in the area of regional economic co-operation have been uneven and modest at best. The long-running success of the European Union (ELI) and the more recent success of the North American Free Trade Area (NAFTA) suggests that regional economic co-operation may entail significant benefits. Furthermore, as the EU's experience clearly illustrates, economic co-operation can significantly reinforce political co-operation and vice versa. Hence the consolidation of the EU as a genuine community of nations owes as much to political co-operation as to economic co-operation. Similarly, we can expect economic co-operation to further cement the already strong political cooperation among ASEAN states and thereby contribute to the emergence of a genuine community of nations in Southeast Asia. Such a community will help foster peace, stability and prosperity in the region, as the EU has done in Western Europe. Compared to the EU, ASEAN is larger and geographically more disparate. For example, Indonesia, the Philippines and part of Malaysia are insular regions cut off from the continental portion of Southeast Asia. Altogether, the ASEAN countries have a land area of close to 4.5 million square kilometers and a population of around 500 million. The combined GDP of the region amounted to a substantial US$1,282 billion in purchasing power parity terms in 1997. This suggests that ASEAN as a whole is economically large enough to make economic co-operation and integration worthwhile and mutually beneficial for its member states. In this article, we examine trends in intra-Southeast Asian income convergence, a key determinant of the prospects greater economic cooperation and integration among the region's countries in the long run. The benefits from economic integration are greater for countries that have similar levels of income level and economic development.(2) Such countries tend to trade and invest more with each other. The underlying reason is that countries with similar income levels have more similar consumption patterns than countries with different income levels, resulting in large intra-industry trade flows. …

The attempt by Severino (2011) to cover the width and depth of the intriguing integration process in Southeast Asia over four decades merits serious attention. One can hardly disagree with the comprehensive description and crispy analysis by Severino, a former Secretary General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Nevertheless, it will be useful to revisit some of the highlights and issues. ASEAN is unique. It was born in the heat of the Cold War driven primarily by security concerns emanating from communist threats. ASEAN was so loosely structured that the acronym was interpreted by some to read as "Ad-hoc Strategic Entity of Ambiguous Nature." Ambiguity turned out to be a virtue as it provided the flexibility, the absence of which the regional body might have aborted. ASEAN was wise enough to go for "consensus" by focusing on issues that would unite its members and steering away from contentious areas that would break up the fragile entity at the initial stage. From its inception in 1967 until the Bali Summit in 1976, ASEAN was seemingly dormant, but the hindsight shows that the first decade was not wasted, as it provided the space for its members to bury their hatchets and build confidence, trust, and understanding so that they could move on. The Bali Summit was a major milestone for ASEAN as it marked the end of the beginning and the dawn of a new era of economic cooperation, albeit on an extremely modest scale. The subsequent story was just one of "learning by doing" without any blueprint or road map, as manifested by the cumbersome "item-by-item" trade liberalization and clumsy industrial cooperation based on five mega projects. ASEAN had apparently put the cart before the horse by identifying the projects and the locations followed by feasibility studies. The projects were understandably shunned by the private sector. Lessons learned from this episode led ASEAN policymakers to work more closely with market forces. ASEAN was more successful in its external relations with major powers and trading partners, thanks mainly to the Cold War. The external support that ASEAN had received in its infancy was due not to its bargaining strengths but its inherent weaknesses and the importance the developed countries had attached to the region in geopolitical terms. The end of the Cold War was a rude awakening for ASEAN which had to reinvent itself to stay relevant not only for the rest of the world but also for its own sake. Consequently, the 1990s turned out to be very challenging. Understandably, ASEAN has largely been reactive, not proactive. It is commendable that ASEAN could respond to these challenges in a positive way by widening and deepening the regional integration, as demonstrated by the expansion of ASEAN from six to ten and the bold integration initiatives, which included ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), and the ASEAN Charter. It is also remarkable that these processes gathered momentum despite the 1997/1998 Asian financial crisis. The latter was a blessing in disguise as it underscored the need for regional arrangements. All is not well in ASEAN. It is doubtful if AEC will come to fruition by 2015 as planned. Community building calls for a single identity and a common destiny based on convergence of values and dreams, but there is still too much national pride and sovereignty. Business people tend to look at the region differently from policymakers. Things that seem too sacred to the latter in terms of national sovereignty are often seen as no more than obstacles by the former. The weakest link in the chain relates to the shallowness of financial integration. ASEAN has a long way to go before there can be meaningful macroeconomic policy consultation, cooperation, and collaboration, especially with respect to monetary, fiscal, and exchange rate management. ASEAN is too small to make a global impact: it is less than half of the size of China in terms of both population and purchasing power. The extensions through ASEAN+3 and East Asia Summit do help, but the centrality of ASEAN in the mosaic of concentric circles cannot be taken for granted. There are already signs that the center of gravity in East Asia is shifting from Southeast Asia to Northeast Asia. The huge development gap in ASEAN is also a cause for concern. The new members need a lot more help than what the older ones have provided thus far. In fact, the ASEAN efforts at reducing the intraregional development disparity pale miserably in comparison with the extraregional contributions. There is a need for a greater pooling and sharing of resources within ASEAN to close this gap. Finally, a reference must be made to the leadership crisis in ASEAN. Indonesia under Soeharto did play the "big brother" role in ASEAN. It is now obvious that there is a leadership vacuum which no member country is willing or able to fill. Indonesia is preoccupied with setting its own house in order. Thailand has no gumption in the face of domestic political turmoil. Singapore is too small to take the lead. Malaysia does not have the oomph or the charisma.

This article examines the efforts that have been made by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as an institution to deal with the Asian crisis. At the national level, member countries have taken steps to strengthen supervision of banks, foster great transparency in financial transactions, and promote competition. At the bilateral level, ASEAN members have extended assistance to the most affected countries, especially Indonesia. At the international level, ASEAN members have collectively appealed to the advanced countries to keep their markets open, to be more accommodating in the renegotiation of debt, and to remember to protect the poor in their reform programmes. The article traces ASEAN initiatives at successive meetings, but concludes that existing economic co-operation programmes need to be widened in scope and deepened in commitments. Introduction There appears to be a serious gap in perceptions between ASEAN officials and the public in and outside ASEAN on the efforts made by that institution to overcome the economic crisis that has affected all its members, albeit in varying degrees. Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia have been hit hardest; Singapore and the Philippines to a much lesser extent. Yet, a prolonged and deep crisis in the severely affected regional economies will also pull down the growth rates in Singapore and the Philippines as has been evident since the beginning of 1998. Even countries such as Vietnam and Laos that are relatively more insulated are also affected by the economic slowdown in the region. Since the regional impact of the crisis is so pronounced, it would be logical to expect ASEAN to be in the forefront of regional and international responses to the crisis. In the public's view this is one of the most important reasons for having ASEAN and for promoting ASEAN economic co-operation. The public has been largely disappointed with ASEAN. Its perception is that of a helpless ASEAN, an ASEAN that cannot move decisively, an ASEAN that is trapped under its organizational and bureaucratic weight, and an ASEAN that fails to respond to real, current problems and challenges. Perhaps this public perception has been influenced mainly by ASEAN's failure in 1996 and 1997 to do something tangible about the severe regional haze problem that affected the health of the people in many ASEAN countries. The expansion of ASEAN membership to include a problem country such as Myanmar, and the difficulties ASEAN has encountered in bringing in Cambodia, are regarded as hampering ASEAN's ability to act swiftly. They are also seen as weakening the diplomatic clout that ASEAN would need to effectively mobilize international support in resolving the crisis (Hernandez 1998). There has been much soul-searching in ASEAN during the past year that coincided with the onset of the crisis. Until then ASEAN was still in a state of euphoria due to the region's remarkable record of rapid economic growth, the near completion of the One Southeast Asia enterprise, and its important role in the creation of the wider regional co-operative structures by virtue of being a copilot in APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) and occupying the driver's seat in the ARF (ASEAN Regional Forum). This position crumbled almost overnight with the financial meltdown. ASEAN's future relevance to its members and to the region suddenly becomes a relevant question in many quarters, even within the ASEAN officialdom. ASEAN, some have argued, cannot maintain its relevance if it continues to be inhibited by the principle of nonintervention that it has held sacrosanct. Suggestions were made to bring ASEAN back to the drawing board. It is to be re-established under a new principle of constructive involvement (Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim) or flexible engagement (Thailand's Foreign Minister) that enables its members to discuss domestic developments in an ASEAN member that affect other members' security and well-being, ASEAN's cohesiveness, and the security of the wider region (Wanandi 1998). …

I. Introduction The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) (1) has adopted the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and ASEAN Vision 2020 for integrating its economies into a single production base, creating a regional market, and changing ASEAN into a stable, prosperous, and highly competitive region. The ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint, established to fast-track the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) establishment by 2015, envisioned ASEAN as a highly competitive region, fully integrated into the global economy, possessing a single market production base, and characterized by equitable economic development (Goh 2008). Infrastructure development is essential to the realization of ASEAN's goal of economic integration and is indispensable to ASEAN's future success. In view of the ongoing global financial and economic crisis, now more than ever, the development of infrastructure needs to be accelerated to enhance physical connectivity and to encourage resource-sharing for rebalancing ASEAN growth towards increased intraregional trade and regional demand. To promote cross-border trade and investment, improve countries' productivity and competitiveness, and raise domestic output, it is important that ASEAN be connected through improved and integrated roads, railways, airways, ports and energy and tele-communication networks. This paper discusses the role of infrastructure development in ASEAN economic connectivity and integration and its associated issues and challenges. Section II presents the role of regional infrastructure cooperation in growth and integration. Section III provides an overview of ASEAN infrastructure and its importance for enhancing growth, trade, and investment; reducing the development gap; providing adequate basic needs; and achieving poverty reduction. Section IV examines issues and challenges in infrastructure development. Section V addresses infrastructure financing requirements, while section VI concludes. II. Regional Infrastructure Cooperation, Economic Growth, and Integration Infrastructure plays an important role in promoting rapid economic growth and making this growth more inclusive by sharing the benefits of growth with poorer groups and communities, particularly in remote and isolated areas and small and landlocked countries. Infrastructure facilitates the access of the poor to basic services and helps increase their income generating capacity. Physical connectivity through cross-border infrastructure (CBI) development is crucial for enhanced regional cooperation and economic integration (Kuroda 2006). Broadly defined, infrastructure can be categorized into hard and soft infrastructure. The former refers to physical structures or facilities that support the society and economy, such as transport, energy, telecommunications, and basic utilities. The latter refers to non-tangible aspects supporting the development and operation of hard infrastructure, such as policy, regulatory, governance, and institutional frameworks and mechanisms (Bhattacharyay 2008). Cross-border or regional infrastructure may be defined as infrastructure that connects two or more countries, as well as national infrastructure that has a significant cross-border impact. Therefore, a large portion of national infrastructure, such as airports, ports, roads, and railways, can be considered as CBI and is the building block for cross-border or regional connectivity. Empirical evidence indicates that infrastructure spending has a positive and statistically significant effect on long-run economic growth (World Bank 2002). Esfahani and Ramirez (2003) have found that if Africa had East Asia's growth rate in telephones per capita (10 per cent versus 5 per cent) and in electricity generation (6 per cent versus 2 per cent), its per capita GDP growth rate would have been at least 0.9 per cent higher. In East Asia, recent studies have indicated that greater stocks of infrastructure were indeed associated with higher growth (Seethepalli, Bramait, and Veredas 2008). …

The aim of this report is to trace back and analyse the legal nature of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) since its birth. Presently, ASEAN is changing its nature from an “association” to an “international organization”. Although ASEAN uses the model of the EU and the WTO for the new ASEAN vision 2020, their legal natures are quite different. ASEAN economic integration is still in the process of changing. The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) was formed by ASEAN members to create a single market for the region by 2015. This new model of ASEAN will pave the way for regional economic cooperation and integration. Furthermore, it will support the expansion of trade and investment liberalization in this decade. However, it does not mean that ASEAN economic integration will undermine the WTO; to the contrary, it will facilitate the main purposes of the WTO and play a significance role in economic cooperation as a key regional organization and support the basic principles of the WTO.

It was common political fear that brought the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) together in 1967. By and large, it was also an external threat that had held ASEAN together through the years. But while peace and stability within ASEAN provided a conducive environment for economic growth and development, each member in ASEAN had developed largely out of its own independent achievement. They owed rela tively little to joint ASEAN economic co-operation efforts. Existing economic co-operation had been based on inward-looking, bureaucratic protracted negotiations as formulated in the conceptual framework of the Kansu report (1974).1 With the dissolution of the Cold War and the resultant change in political configurations in Southeast Asia, the external threat can no longer be the glue. ASEAN needs a new cohesive force and a common purpose to survive the coming decade. Moreover, there are also other factors such as wider regional efforts in the Asia-Pacific which may create centrifugal forces to threaten the fragility of ASEAN sohdarity. On the other hand, ASEAN and Pacific economic co-operation in the 1990s could take advantage of the increasing web of economic linkages among ASEAN countries resulting from their progressively outward oriented industrialization strategy since the early 1980s. The latter was sus tained by investments from multinational corpora tions (MNCs), increasingly from Northeast Asia, which have penetrated all the ASEAN economies. This study examines ASEAN involvement in Pacific economic initiatives, and is structured as follows. Section 1 provides a brief overview of past ASEAN economic co-operation efforts, to highlight the structure and trends of development so far, and to assess the impact of the mechanisms chosen for ASEAN economic co-operation (ASEAN industrial projects, ASEAN industrial comple mentation scheme, ASEAN industrial joint venture scheme). Existing trends in direct foreign invest ment and trade in the Asia-Pacific region will be examined in Section 2 to reflect the outward orientation of ASEAN economies in the 1980s, particularly the new mode of ASEAN economic co-operation based on an outward oriented strategy that emphasized the role of the private sector, while Section 3 analyses the various regional economic

In 1977, Burma was drawn somewhat closer to the mainstream of events in Southeast Asia but essentially adhered to its long-standing independent, nonaligned foreign policy with a minimum of external involvement. The most striking contact between Burma and Southeast Asia regional developments was provided by Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda who came directly to Rangoon (10-12 August) after his consultations in Kuala Lumpur with leaders of the five members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) following the ASEAN summit meeting. Burma's leaders have repeatedly rejected suggestions that Burma consider membership in this regional organization and there is no evidence that Prime Minister Fukuda's visit brought Burma and ASEAN any closer. However the Burma-Japan joint communique issued on 11 August following talks between Prime Minister Fukuda and Burmese Prime Minister U Maung Maung Kha, stated that Japan highly appreciated the self reliant and independent spirit of the ASEAN countries and their positive endeavours to promote and strengthen intraregional harmony and to achieve the development of the region. The two countries also asserted that all Asian nations should work together to build a prosperous and peaceful Asia. This co-operation should be based on respect for territorial integrity, political independence and noninterference of one nation in the internal affairs of another, the communique said. Prime Minister Fukuda also reportedly briefed Burmese President Ne Win on his conversations in Kuala Lumpur with the leaders of the ASEAN nations. The significance of Prime Minister Fukuda's discussions with Burmese leaders on his ASEAN talks ?nd of the inclusion of Rangoon in his swing through Southeast Asia to visit the capitals of ASEAN countries was accentuated by the Japanese-Burmese discussions on bilateral matters. The pattern of the Burmese-Japanese bilateral talks, as reflected in press r?pons, was similar in a number of ways to the pattern of Prime Minister Fukuda's talks with the leaders of the five ASEAN nations. The Japanese Prime Minister promised Burma a ?600 million grant to help increase food produc tion. (Similar food production grants were made to Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand). The Japanese also pledged to consider providing financial and technical aid for five new projects in Burma including a urea plant and a rice mill. (Similar Japanese aid was promised for urea plants in Indonesia and Malaysia, if they prove feasible, plus other so-called ASEAN industrial projects in the other three ASEAN countries.) Burma and Japan agreed that trade between the two should be expanded, a theme which was prominent in Prime Minister Fukuda's talks with the ASEAN leaders. The state of relations between the nations of Indochina and the rest of Southeast Asia was reponedly a topic in Prime Minister Fukuda's talk with President Ne Win as it was in his talks with ASEAN leaders during his tour of Southeast Asia. Co-operation in cultural activities was yet another common theme in Prime Minister Fukuda's discussions with Southeast Asian leaders during his six-nation tour of the area. There

Introduction This article will examine Indonesia's role within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the light of the ongoing political and economic crisis that has afflicted Indonesia. To examine the role Indonesia seeks to play in ASEAN, it is important to examine Indonesia's foreign policy context, including a brief history of its involvement with ASEAN. A more detailed account will then be given of recent developments within ASEAN, including the forest fire problem, the financial crisis, membership enlargement, and the emerging debate over the traditional non-interference principle. Some comment on the recent Sixth ASEAN Leaders Meeting in Hanoi is also necessary. The article will conclude with some commentary on the implications of recent political and economic problems for Indonesia's status and role within ASEAN, together with some cautious forecasting. It is important to note that ASEAN's great success was to achieve security by preventing the Balkanization of Southeast Asia. Whether ASEAN can go beyond this achievement remains an open question. The recent currency crisis has had some profound implications for the Asian region. Indonesia has been affected greatly by political and economic crisis. Its capacity to play a role in the wider region has come into question following events surrounding the leadership succession in May 1998. This has come at a time when ASEAN is regarded by many observers as being irrelevant to the troubles in the region, of which Indonesia's crisis is a large factor. While Indonesia's domestic problems have left it unable to lead ASEAN at present, Soeharto's departure has coincided with a series of open public criticisms by ASEAN leaders of other fellow members. To understand Indonesia's future role in ASEAN, a series of questions must be examined: Will Indonesia continue to enforce non-interference in the post-Soeharto era? Or will the Habibie administration favour Thailand's proposed flexible engagement whereby comments on member states' internal affairs becomes permissible? Will ASEAN flag in its ability to undertake political and economic initiatives now that Indonesia's foreign affairs capability is significantly reduced? Have recent events in Southeast Asia strained bilateral relations between Indonesia and its neighbours to the extent that ASEAN will now become less cohesive? The answers to these questions are difficult to know in entirety; however, certain trends can be seen emerging. Most crucial of all, and a question that nobody can answer, is the future stability of Indonesia as a state, given its importance to the Southeast Asian region. Indonesia's Foreign Policy Context Soon after Indonesia's independence, Vice-President Mohammad Hatta characterized its foreign policy as free and active (bebas aktif), a guideline that continues to this day. Essentially, this implied nonalignment and equidistance between the superpowers. Non-alignment became the core of Soeharto's foreign policy, which was part of Indonesia's opposition to the colonial nations and fear of neo-colonialization through international trade and commerce. Soeharto's emergence as leader in 1966 marked a change in foreign policy, but not in its underlying assumptions about the role that Indonesia should play in the region. Soekarno and Soeharto espoused the same notion of regional and global influence but sought their goals in different ways. Indonesia's policy-makers maintain a belief that it should play a wider regional, and ultimately global, role. However, Soeharto's New Order made some important changes to foreign policy outcomes. Broadly speaking, Soeharto established three spheres of influence. The first was the West, primarily for trade, investment and assistance links. Soeharto's initial concern was to improve Indonesia's economic prospects; aid, trade and investment from the developed world was the only way to achieve this. The second sphere of influence was within the developing world, primarily within the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). …

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has played a pivotal role in promoting Cambodia's economic, political, and social cooperation with other member nations. Despite this, little is known about how Cambodian Generation Z—a dynamic group shaping the future of the country—is contributing to national development. This article investigates experience with ASEAN integration among Generation Z in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, using a mixed-methods approach. The research comprises eight key informant interviews and a survey of 414 participants. Results indicate that Generation Z in Phnom Penh possess limited experience with ASEAN integration. Most respondents have little experience with ASEAN-related events including travel, direct contact with ASEAN people, or chances like regional job markets and scholarships. Nevertheless, experiences related to cultural exchange, ASEAN identity growth, and optimistic attitudes toward ASEAN integration are more moderate, though not commonly shared. Though they are not common, a smaller number of respondents indicated more deep experiences via participating in different exchange programs, ASEAN simulations, and leadership projects. The study indicates that in order to improve practical experience and strengthen knowledge of regional integration, ASEAN projects need more active involvement of young people.

INTRODUCTION In the past decades, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has evolved rapidly to become one of the key emerging regional institutions in the world. As one of its key agendas, ASEAN has promoted progressive regional integration alongside the reduction of the intra-regional development gap. The process of ASEAN integration has been wide-ranging and inclusive, leading to significant benefits to members, even the less-developed ones such as Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Vietnam (CLMV). Although the “CLMV growth story is one ASEAN success story with lessons … on the potential benefits of economic integration” (ERIA 2014), maintaining the momentum for further improvement is essential. The idea of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is not new. The initiative actually represents a continuation of the “Concentric Circle Strategy”, which gradually builds on ASEAN integration in the form of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) to be created by 2015 and ASEAN-plus integration with “ASEAN centrality”. The RCEP was initiated by ASEAN itself in 2011 with the Association's Framework for RCEP. In 2012, leaders of all sixteen economies — including ASEAN members, China, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and India — supported and agreed to launch the RCEP negotiations. Fundamentally, the RCEP resembles the various efforts around the region for broader regional integration, such as the East Asian Free Trade Area (EAFTA) initiative by China and the Comprehensive Economic Partnership in East Asia (CEPEA) proposal by Japan. Since the RCEP originates from ASEAN's aspirations, a couple of natural questions arise. The first is whether the RCEP arrangement can be really effective for sustaining growth and narrowing the development gap in the CLMV countries. The second question is whether the RCEP can benefit from the AEC framework. In answering these questions, one may need to start by identifying their possible impacts on these member economies. Complications introduced by the new context of Asia-Pacific integration — i.e., the ongoing Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations — should also be considered carefully even though not all the CLMV countries participate directly in the process. These questions and issues constitute the main analytical focus of this chapter. The remainder of the chapter is structured as follows. Section 2 summarizes the main possible impacts of the RCEP on the CLMV countries.

This article is a preliminary examination of how Southeast Asian media frame the regional integration of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a news topic. Without grassroots engagement, the ASEAN integration will inevitably fall short of its grand objectives, and crucial to building grassroots engagement is media coverage capable of building audience interest and appreciation. Based on articles published during the major ASEAN summit events in 2018, the authors identified resonant themes in the reportage and discussed these vis-a-vis the documented character of the different media environments in the region. It was found that the axis of the reportage is the declarations and actions of the heads of state, with very few human interest and context-building stories that would have built audience engagement in what is otherwise an affair revolving around ‘men in suits’. Moreover, the journalistic emphasis on consensus and state initiatives reflects continuing adherence to the tenets of the development journalism framework, but this can also be interpreted as the dominance of ‘prominence’ as a news value (i.e. stories are framed according to the gestures of prominent individuals). These findings call attention to the need for re-thinking reportage on potentially high-stake phenomena such as the ASEAN integration.

As a relatively new feature of the digital revolution in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), e-ASEAN was initiated by the ASEAN economic ministers in September 1999 and endorsed by ASEAN leaders at their summit in Manila in November the same year, when the e-ASEAN Task Force was also set up (ASEAN Secretariat, 2003). At the Fourth ASEAN Informal Summit in Singapore in November 2000, a Framework Agreement was signed to serve as the legal foundation for the e-ASEAN initiative. To ensure success, the Senior Economic Officials Meeting (SEOM) was tasked to supervise, coordinate, and review the implementation of the e-ASEAN Framework Agreement. As stipulated in the e-ASEAN Framework Agreement, the SEOM reports to the ASEAN Economic Ministers (AEM) and assists the AEM in all matters concerning this Agreement (ASEAN, 2000, Article 13). While there is no lack of literature discussing trade liberalisation and transborder cooperation in the ASEAN region, the impact of new information and communications technologies (ICTs) on the development of regionalism, and vice versa, remains a rather neglected area of study (Dai, 2003). The purpose of this article is to investigate the implications of the e-ASEAN initiative for regional cooperation and integration in South East Asia in the information age. In particular, the key challenges to achieving the objectives of the e-ASEAN initiative will be analysed.

As a relatively new feature of the digital revolution in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), e-ASEAN was initiated by the ASEAN economic ministers in September 1999 and endorsed by ASEAN leaders at their summit in Manila in November the same year, when the e-ASEAN Task Force was also set up (ASEAN Secretariat, 2003). At the Fourth ASEAN Informal Summit in Singapore in November 2000, a Framework Agreement was signed to serve as the legal foundation for the e-ASEAN initiative. To ensure success, the Senior Economic Officials Meeting (SEOM) was tasked to supervise, coordinate, and review the implementation of the e-ASEAN Framework Agreement. As stipulated in the e-ASEAN Framework Agreement, the SEOM reports to the ASEAN Economic Ministers (AEM) and assists the AEM in all matters concerning this Agreement (ASEAN, 2000, Article 13). While there is no lack of literature discussing trade liberalisation and transborder cooperation in the ASEAN region, the impact of new information and communications technologies (ICTs) on the development of regionalism, and vice versa, remains a rather neglected area of study (Dai, 2003). The purpose of this article is to investigate the implications of the e-ASEAN initiative for regional cooperation and integration in South East Asia in the information age. In particular, the key challenges to achieving the objectives of the e-ASEAN initiative will be analysed.