asean_peace
Striving for a political and security community is ASEAN’s raison d’être. The APSC has worked to prevent or minimise conflict in the region while keeping the major powers engaged in Southeast Asia through processes such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the ASEAN Plus Three, and, starting from 2005, the East Asia Summit (EAS); and establishing a rules-based foundation for inter-state relations through instruments such as the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC) in Southeast Asia and the ASEAN Charter. Yet, the failure in 2012 to reach a common position regarding the activities of claimant states in the South China Sea highlighs a reality of tensions; strains between the national interests of member states and the priority to be accorded to broader regional interests. But in 2014, under the all-encompassing theme of “Moving forward in unity towards a peaceful and prosperous Community”, ASEAN member states have issued stronger-worded statements on the South China Sea, and have been engaging in multi-layered diplomacy that strikes a balance between regional commitments to accomplish, together with China, a Code of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea, and the significant bilateral relations that some ASEAN members have with China.
asean-prosperity
ASEAN was one of the first developing regions to adopt an outward-oriented development strategy. The region’s free trade area is now essentially in place although domestic acceptance and enforcement of regional commitments is an ongoing topic of debate, fuelling scepticism of ASEAN’s ability to achieve the AEC by 2015. ASEAN’s external economic relations have met with greater success; several FTAs with countries throughout the world, including those with China and India, are in place. The AEC aims to create a unified market and production base by 2015 via a free flow of goods, services, foreign direct investment (FDI), skilled labour and a freer flow of capital. Its Blueprint has been described as a “highly ambitious” programme of economic cooperation, aspiring to make ASEAN economic cooperation the most comprehensive and substantive regional cooperation programme in the developing world. Despite obvious challenges, AEC implementation has been the most visible area of regional integration, mainly due to the quantitative (and quantifiable) targets of the AEC. AEC benefits are seen in terms of lower transaction costs, reduced prices and increased consumer choices, all of which are important to the people in ASEAN member countries, the intended beneficiaries of closer economic integration.