Vietnam and ASEAN: Who Would Have Thought it Possible?

Abstract

When ASEAN was still being formed, I was a foreign service intern at the Thai desk in the U.S. Department of State. Foreign Minister Thanat was working with Secretary Rusk at the time in coming up with a name for the organization, and I assisted in drafting the cables. As I brought one up to the secretary late on a Friday afternoon, Rusk was musing about the importance of the future group (whatever it was to be called) to U.S. foreign policy in Southeast Asia. He observed (if I recall correctly) that new organization might be the first of its kind: a regional alliance in American interests but without the need for American intervention. As such, it would be much better than a follow-on to SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization).' ASEAN would be a force for stability on its own that even the communist countries of Asia might want to join and that would be a better guarantee against future wars than continuing to have to fight them. I learned much later from former Malaysia Foreign Minister Tan Sri Ghazalie Shafie that this was also the perspective of his counterparts. By bringing ASEAN to life via a Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, he observed at a recent meeting in Kuala Lumpur to consider the implications of Vietnam's entry into the organization, we expected that one day Vietnam would be able to join by acceding to this treaty. When the Americans withdrew