Some Tough Facts about ASEAN's Institutional Stalemate

South-east Asia’s fast-growing economies – Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand – have been engaged in an integration process since the mid-1960s, and that spread to the new ASEAN member states of Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia during the 1990s. Jan Willem Blankert rightly points out that ASEAN has contributed to peace and stability in the region and the reason is simple. By developing economic ties, interdependence in the region has increased and the risk of political or military conflict has diminished. But there is also another part of the ASEAN story that needs to be told.