ASEAN is widely recognized in the international community as an exemplar of enlightened and successful regionalism. But what precisely constitutes the nature and measure of its achievements?
In the first place, it is remarkable enough that ASEAN has survived for all of three decades, considering that at the time of its birth, not a few political observers had predicted that, like its predecessors - the SEATO, the Association of Southeast Asia (ASA) and the Maphilindo - it would soon wither in the blast of the complex and unpredictable regional situation. As Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas recalls, "When ASEAN was born, there were a good number of skeptics who would not believe that, given the wide divergences of view among the ASEAN countries, the differences in the political and economic systems of its founding members, it would ever succeed in this endeavor at regional cooperation. Well, ASEAN proved all its critics wrong and it is now a vibrant reality, an Association recognized not only in its own region but also in the world at large as one of the most successful regional cooperative schemes".