ASEAN, 50 years on: 

ASEAN, 50 years on: 

Context

• The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) can look back with optimism on its incremental record on regional integration on the 50th anniversary of its founding on 8th August.

The policy of non-interference

• The original policy of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states was noteworthy.
• But over the years, there has been growing appreciation that non-interference, if perceived as indifference, entails political cost, impeding more substantial engagement.
• 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 liberalization.
• It then in 2007 led to adopting a legal charter with a mandate to establish free movement of goods, services, capital and skilled personnel by ASEAN.
• With the 2015 launch of the ASEAN Economic Community, the bloc is on the threshold of realizing its ambition of emerging as an integrated single market and to engage the rest of the world with a unified voice.
• Still there is little noticeable action on the ground in relation to reduction of tariffs, and intra-regional trade.

Comparison with European Union (EU)

• The relatively slow pace of economic integration in the group, compared to the European Union is inherent.
• The result was the establishment of transnational bodies, with definite powers of oversight, by pooling sovereignty among nations in the case of EU.
• Contrariwise, 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.