economics these pages may identify 1994 as a pivotal year for the region and beyond. Two developments with enormous potential significance for Southeast Asia's ? indeed Asia-Pacific's ? security and economics occurred. First, the birth of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) Bangkok, ushered by a meeting of the foreign ministers of eighteen of the Asia-Pacific's major players. Second, Indonesia's hosting of the second Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) forum summit, and the resulting Bogor Declaration which committed APEC members to make the Asia-Pacific a free trade area by 2020. Symbolically, the holding of two Asia-Pacific wide meetings the ASEAN cities of Bangkok and Bogor suggests ASEAN's readiness to assume a higher profile the region's security and economic futures. To be sure, enthusiasm among ASEAN members towards these emergent institutions is not uniform, and there are worries that the ARF and APEC might dilute ASEAN's sense of purpose and solidarity. Without diminishing the significance of these diverse ASEAN reactions and worries, it should still be possible to suggest that the ARF and APEC are in sync with the times, that is the post-Cold War security and economic landscape. If the ARF and APEC turn out to be the right institutions at the right time, as I believe they are, and if they are properly nurtured, they bode well for the tranquillity and prosperity of the Asia-Pacific.