This year, ASEAN celebrates 40 years of regional cooperation.  The five founding countries of ASEAN, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, established the Association in 1967. Today, the Association has ten members without any ideological barrier, with Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, and Viet Nam added to the list.

A. Achievements

Throughout 40 years of cooperation, ASEAN faced different challenges, but it also achieved the following:

1. ASEAN has been playing a strategic role in the region’s geo-political architecture:

1. ASEAN took a common position on the crisis in Cambodia in 1978 which raised solidarity and strengthened regional security;
2. Together with other countries, ASEAN established the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) as a forum of consultation of ASEAN Member Countries and other global security players, including the European Union;
3. ASEAN is in the driver’s seat in the ASEAN Plus Three mechanism, cooperation with China, Japan, and Republic of Korea (ROK). ASEAN was also entrusted to launch the East Asian Summit (EAS).

2. In responding to the financial crisis of 1997, ASEAN focused on economic and financial recovery, while resolving to move towards economic integration for a single market. This is achieved by accelerating the implementation of ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), the ASEAN Investment Area (AIA), and the ASEAN Industrial Cooperation (AICO) scheme.  

3. Currently, ASEAN is pursuing Free Trade Agreeements (FTAs) with Australia/New Zealand, China, India, Japan, Republic of Korea (ROK), and the EU.

4. ASEAN Member Countries have worked together in addressing transboundary problems and regional crisis, such as haze, SARS and natural disasters: 

• The ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution was signed in 2002 and entered into force in 2003.
• ASEAN successfully prevented and eradicated the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) disease.
• After Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand were hit by tsunami in December 2004, ASEAN Leaders met in Special Leaders’ Meeting in January 2005 and agreed to strengthen the scheme of regional disaster management by setting up regional structures, mechanisms and strategies on disaster management.

5. The ASEAN Leaders in 2003, through the Declaration of ASEAN Concord II (Bali Concord II), declared the establishment of the ASEAN Community by the year 2020.  The timeline has now been accelerated to year 2015.

The ASEAN Community rests on three pillars, namely political and security cooperation, economic cooperation, and socio-cultural cooperation. Each pillar will take the form of its own community:

• The ASEAN Political Security Community (APSC) shows that ASEAN has gained more confidence in addressing political and security matters. Countries in the region are ensured of living in peace with one another.
• The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is the end goal of ASEAN economic integration. The AEC will be a single market and production base with free flow of goods, services, investment, freer flow of capital and free movement of skilled labour.  The integrated economy should be stronger than separate individual member’s economy, making it possible to compete with emerging economies like China and India.   
• The ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) will bind ASEAN Member Countries together in improving the quality of life of ASEAN people towards a community of caring societies.

6. In building the ASEAN Community and reaching regional economic integration, the ASEAN Leaders signed the ASEAN Charter at the 13th ASEAN Summit in Singapore on 20 November 2007. The ASEAN Charter means the following to ASEAN Community building:

1. The ASEAN Charter provides transparent rules for ASEAN to operate, and predictabilities for the outside world;
2. The Charter institutionalise the working processes of ASEAN to enable ASEAN officials to make decisions more effectively;
3. In relation to the first two points, the Charter provides the necessary adjustments to ensure better coordination and efficiency; 
4. The ASEAN Secretary-General has more monitoring functions towards programmes/activities agreed upon by ASEAN.

With the ASEAN Charter, all ASEAN Member Countries become ASEAN members on an equal start.  The Charter will dissipate the paradigm of older and newer ASEAN Member Countries.

B. Challenges

The following are what I see as challenges facing ASEAN:

1. Competition from emerging economies, such as China, India, Japan, Bangladesh and Egypt; especially in terms of size of market and production/supply chain.  Before 1999, ASEAN was the “darling” of foreign investors. Now the ten Southeast Asian countries have to work harder together to meet the competition of these economic players.

2. A sense of insecurity following transnational challenges, such as international terrorism, natural disasters, and environmental degradation (like haze and climate change).

3. Maturity or coming of age of many ASEAN Member Countries. Some of the ASEAN Member Countries have opened up their society and economy.

4. Narrowing the Development Gap (NDG). ASEAN is aiming to reduce the development gap between the more developed Member Countries with the less developed Member Countries. The challenges in the development gap include income disparity and inadequate infrastructure.

5. The role of ASEAN. This prospect intertwines with ASEAN’s nature as an outward-looking organisation.

• ASEAN’s role as the driving force of regional developments.  ASEAN is the driving force of the ARF, the ASEAN Plus Three mechanism and the East Asia Summit (EAS).  
• ASEAN’s role on the global stage would be addressing pressing global issues along with other global players, such as on HIV/AIDs, water, environmental degradation, climate change and maritime security.

6. Pooling of resources.  Another challenge, especially in the context of building the ASEAN Community and in forming a rules-based organisation, is to avoid the impression of a supranational body.  As mentioned above, the ASEAN Charter would institutionalise the working processes of ASEAN, and would not reduce the sovereignty of ASEAN Member Countries.  

Conclusion

After 40 years of efforts and achievements, ASEAN comes to a stage of building the ASEAN Community. The ASEAN Community will be most difficult to achieve without a more organised structure and legally-binding rules. Therefore, ASEAN Leaders decided to make the organisation a rules-based organisation.  While doing so, ASEAN will continuously face many challenges, whether in the context of Community building or as part of the global community.  We believe that after 40 years of cooperation, by laying the right foundations and in seeking the proper channels of cooperation, ASEAN is heading towards the right direction.