The ten-member Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) is proud of its way of doing things, which to the outsider sometimes looks like doing very little at all, except for holding many meetings every year. The club has long billed 2015 as a transformational year, with the arrival of “the ASEAN Community”. But it would be a mistake to expect dramatic change in an organisation whose hallmark is slow, consensual progress to a goal, regional integration, which often seems more attractive in theory than in practice. Rather, 2015 will be another year in which the political rhetoric is a long way from economic reality.