ASEAN

Southeast Asia had suffered colonial rule, war and poverty, and during the Cold War it was pulled between the two blocs. Ideas of Asian unity, like the Bandung conference (1955) and the Non-Aligned Movement, did not by themselves build regular cooperation.

So in 1967, five countries, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, signed the Bangkok Declaration and formed the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). It later grew to ten members (Timor-Leste joined as the eleventh in 2025). Its logo of ten paddy stalks stands for the ten members bound together.

The aim was to speed up economic growth, social progress and cultural development, and to keep peace in the region.

The 'ASEAN Way' is what makes it different from the EU:

• Informal, friendly and non-confrontational: decisions by quiet agreement, not majority votes.
• Full respect for each member's sovereignty: no interfering in each other's internal affairs.
• No supranational bodies: unlike the EU, no institution sits above the national governments.

ASEAN Community (agreed in 2003) has three pillars:

• ASEAN Security Community: settle disputes peacefully. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), set up in 1994, handles security and foreign policy dialogue.
• ASEAN Economic Community: a common market and production base, with free trade.
• ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community.

India and ASEAN: India's Look East policy of the 1990s became the Act East policy in 2014. India signed a free trade agreement with ASEAN, in force from 2010. ASEAN matters to India for trade, investment, and as a balance to China.

ASEAN is often called the only regional group in Asia that really works: slow, informal, but steadily growing.