ASEAN's new role in the Asia Pacific Region: can it be a driving force of wider regional economic cooperation?

Abstract

This paper analyses how ASEAN members (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Brunei) have been responding to the changing world economic environment, and how ASEAN, as a regional organisation, has been changing its priorities to reflect members' adjustments to the international environment. In its early phase, ASEAN was simply a group of neighbouring countries without coordinated external policy positions. However, it is now becoming a subsystem in international relations and able to put a collective point of view. The members of ASEAN have realised that it is more effective to voluntarily coordinate their positions in international forums and negotiations. The ASEAN Free Trade Area( DFA) agreement is analysed as a new type of A SEAN cooperation and a step towards broader cooperation in the Asia Pacific region. Whether ASEAN can and should be a driving force for broader economic cooperation in the Asia Pacific region is discussed. An ASEAN initiative in this regard, namely the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) process, will be a test of unity for ASEAN itself. Also, the desirability of creating a middle-power coalition, consisting of ASEAN members, Australia, New Zealand and Korea, is considered. Such a coalition would be more beneficial for ASEAN, as well as for other countries in the region, than the proposed framework of the East Asian Economic Caucus (EAEC). This is a revised version of a paper presented at an international symposium on ' Multi-layered Regional Cooperation in Southeast Asia after the Cold War', organised by the Institute of Developing Economies , 9-10 November 1994, Tokyo, Japan.