At its Ninth Summit in October 2003 the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) announced its intention to create an ASEAN Community based upon three pillars: ASEAN Security Community, ASEAN Economic Community and an ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community. A year later ASEAN established the Vientiane Action Programme to realise this goal.
The process of ASEAN community building is a result of the considerable change in the association’s mission in the recent two decades. The end of the Cold War, the advance of globalisation, the rise of China and India in economic size and political influence as well as the Asian financial crisis have forced ASEAN to shift from its original preventive diplomacy of maintaining peace and harmony among its members and in the region to the constructive diplomacy of community building to cope with increasing political and economic competition in a globalised world.