On the 50th anniversary of its founding today, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) can look back with optimism on its incremental record on regional integration. Noteworthy is the realistic move away from the original policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states. Such caution may have been the pragmatic course to adopt during the 1960s, with a view to advance the larger common interest. After all, founder members Singapore and Malaysia had just concluded the former’s independence agreement. Similarly, the conflict between Thailand and the Philippines had been barely resolved. But over the years, there has been growing appreciation that non-interference, if perceived as indifference, entails political cost, impeding more substantial engagement.
The assertion of the democratic will on the common institutional framework was in stark evidence in relation to developments in Myanmar. Opposition from the other ASEAN members against the country’s oppressive military dictatorship forced Rangoon to forgo the body’s annual chair in 2006. This move could prove critical, given the continued pre-eminence of the army elsewhere in the region. Moreover, there has been recognition that the bloc’s expansion to cover ten countries, with highly diverse economic, political and cultural moorings, calls for a greater convergence of policies and more coordinated action. China and India’s emergence as major economic powers has lent greater urgency to trade liberalisation.
The EU versus ASEAN
Thus in 2007, ASEAN adopted a legal charter with a mandate to establish free movement of goods, services, capital and skilled personnel. With the 2015 launch of the ASEAN Economic Community, the bloc is on the threshold of realising its ambition of emerging as an integrated single market and to engage the rest of the world with a unified voice. A familiar refrain among commentators is that for all the lofty declarations issued during ASEAN annual summits, there is little tangible action on the ground in relation to reduction of tariffs, and intra-regional trade. Implicit in this narrative is impatience with the relatively slow pace of economic integration in the group, compared to the European Union. But then, to equate the trajectory of their respective evolution betrays a lack of a sense of history and context. Underpinning the European project was the post-World War II imperative of securing peace, prosperity and unity. There was a clear understanding that these objectives could only be accomplished through concrete mechanisms that rendered another war between France and Germany materially impossible. The result was the establishment of transnational bodies, with definite powers of oversight, by pooling sovereignty among nations.
Conversely, except Thailand, the other original constituents of ASEAN had just emerged from colonialism as newly independent nation states. Defending their sovereignty was bound to be a high priority for them during the Cold War, while their leaders were alive to the need to promote their collective security through a common framework. ASEAN’s integration depends on deepening its democratic institutions.
