On 9 January 2013, Mr. Le Luong Minh, Deputy Foreign Minister of Viet Nam, succeeded Thailand's Dr. Surin Pitsuwan as the Secretary-General of ASEAN (ASEAN SG). This article explains what the ASEAN SG is expected to do, and suggests what he should also try to do.

DUTIES AND RESPONSIBILITIES IN THE CHARTER

Duties and responsibilities of the ASEAN SG are prescribed in the ASEAN Charter's Article 11. Paragraph (a) of the article states: [The Secretary-General shall] “carry out the duties and responsibilities of this high office in accordance with the provisions of this Charter and relevant ASEAN instruments, protocols and established practices”. According to Article 7 Paragraph 2 (g), the ASEAN Summit appoints an ASEAN SG with the rank and status of Minister, who will serve with the confidence and at the pleasure of the Heads of State and Government of ASEAN upon the recommendation of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting (AMM). Article 11 Paragraph 1 states: the appointment is for a non-renewable term of 5 years, based on alphabetical rotation [and consensus], “with due consideration to integrity, capability and professional experience, and gender equality.”

Undiplomatically speaking, the ASEAN Foreign Ministers have direct supervision over the ASEAN SG, and any of the ASEAN Leaders can sack him. This is the political reality and institutional constraint under which every ASEAN SG has to accept and learn to live with.

Paragraph (b) of Article 11 states: [the Secretary-General shall] “facilitate and monitor progress in the implementation of ASEAN agreements and decisions, and submit an annual report on the work of ASEAN to the ASEAN Summit”. The annual report is submitted to the ASEAN Summit in the second quarter of each year; the ASEAN Summit in the fourth quarter is devoted more to ASEAN's external relations. One quandary is whether or not the ASEAN SG should also report on delays and shortcomings. Here, the preference of most government officials is for the omission of negative points, and for the emphasis on progress and achievements. This is part of the celebrated ASEAN Way.

Some ASEAN Leaders actually encouraged Dr. Surin to tell them the “bad news” in ASEAN, not just the good news. One big item of “bad news” that Dr. Surin raised was this: ASEAN is not getting anywhere nearer to achieving a drugs-free zone by the year 2015.

INTRODUCTION

This chapter will examine some tendencies in selected Asian countries which have been affected by migration. Firstly, unlike the historical linkage to the post-Westphalian idea of the nation-state, the long colonial legacy in Asia and the rise of the nation-state in the post-colonial period de-linked the development of citizenship from the long process of “forgetting” which part of the evolution of the nation-state was in the Western experience.

Secondly, the specific migration system that developed in some Asian countries, which is premised on keeping migration temporary, rules out settlement, family reunification and long-term integration, including acquisition of citizenship, for less skilled migrants.

This chapter addresses three questions: (1) How is migration in Asia redefining state conceptions of citizenship? (2) How accessible is the acquisition of citizenship to migrants in Asian countries? (3) What alternative pathways are available in the Asian context for migrants’ incorporation in countries of destination?

WHAT DOES CITIZENSHIP MEAN?

In the contemporary context of intense cross-border movements and possibilities for multiple belonging, the boundaries between “citizens” (insiders) and “non-citizens” (outsiders) have been blurred, rendering the measurement of international migration more difficult. Beyond measurement issues, the meaning of citizenship has become more contested under conditions of globalization, unabated international migration and the emergence of transnational communities.

The shift in status from citizen/national to non-citizen/non-national — and the corresponding loss of a set of rights is one of the factors that makes international migration inherently risky (Bhabha 2005).

International migrants who reside in a state where they are not citizens have varying degrees of inclusion and exclusion in the receiving state.

Different approaches or models of migrant incorporation define the place of migrants in receiving states. These approaches range from differential exclusion, which allows migrants to participate in certain spheres of national life but not in others (e.g., temporary migrant workers are allowed to participate in the economic sphere, but are otherwise excluded from the social, cultural and political life of the receiving society), to assimilation (which requires cultural assimilation of migrants), to multiculturalism (which provides latitude for cultural expression) (Castles 2000).

From a rights perspective, people on the move do not (and should not) lose their rights when they cross borders. From the standpoint of the nation-state, however, states have the right and the duty to protect national interests from “foreign” interests.

The China-proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian nations) countries 10 years ago was mainly a political decision. Responding to ASEAN countries’ concerns over the possible adverse impacts of China's World Trade Organization (WTO) access, Premier Zhu Rongji proposed a China-ASEAN FTA, which was accepted readily by ASEAN leaders.

The FTA proposal involved two parallel considerations on the part of Premier Zhu. On the one hand, it was to dispel the growing concerns among ASEAN nations of a “China threat”. As a regional power, China's rapid rise naturally caused uneasiness among its neighbours, who were uncertain about China's intentions. Economically, such sentiment rose from the fear that, as a WTO member, China would become an even stronger competitor for ASEAN's export to third markets as well as for ASEAN's efforts to attract foreign direct investment (FDI).

Such fear was especially rampant among Southeast Asian countries hard hit by the 1997 financial crisis which resulted in a drastic decline in FDI inflow. Indeed, most ASEAN nations and China are similar in their development levels and economic structures. Thus China presents significant challenges to countries like Indonesia that relies on exports of labour-intensive products.

On the other hand, the China ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) initiation was also a useful tool to reinforce domestic support for China's WTO accession. In fact, China's bid to join the WTO was not totally free of domestic resistance. Some argued that some industries as well as the agriculture sector would suffer from intense import competition. Forming a bilateral trade arrangement with ASEAN offered a good alternative to reduce domestic concerns.

Even though the CAFTA initiation was based mainly on political calculations, economic interests were also important from the very beginning. Chinese leaders were fully aware that ASEAN, a large potential market with 500 million people and rich in various natural resources, could play a crucial role in China's long-run growth.

Somewhat surprisingly, this reactive decision has proved to be quite successful, both diplomatically and economically. As the first FTA of its kind in Asia, the FTA initiative between China and ASEAN gave China a diplomatic advantage. Soon afterwards, Japan, worried that China might dominate the region, was compelled to follow suit.

TRENDS IN URBANISATION INSOUTH-EAST ASIA

South-east Asia is one of the world's least urbanised regions. Aside from Singapore, which is 100% urban, only Malaysia and recently, Indonesia, have officially passed the point where 50 per cent of their population lives in urban areas. However, these statistics are misleading, in two ways. First, the official definitions of urban areas differ considerably from country to country, and in some cases understate the proportion of population living in what most observers would consider to be urban areas. Second, the spread of urban lifestyles and influences to areas classified as rural is profound, and means that rural areas are very different from what they were a few decades ago (Jones 1997: 239–41).

TRENDS IN DISTRIBUTION OF URBAN POPULATION BY SIZE CLASS

About half of Asia's urban population lives in towns and cities with populations below half a million. If we go behind the regional figures and focus on two Southeast Asian countries — Indonesia and Malaysia — some interesting facts emerge. First, the proportion in different urban size class groups fluctuates when cities move from one size class to another (as when Jakarta moved into the 5 million plus class size in 1980). Malaysia does not yet have any city in the 5 million plus class range, at least not when the Federal Territory boundary is used to measure the population of Kuala Lumpur.

Both countries appear to be well above the Asian average in the share of small towns and cities (i.e. less than 500,000) in their overall urban population distribution. In Malaysia, this proportion has moved down over time, whereas in Indonesia, it has moved up over time; in 2010, the proportions were 70 and 74 per cent respectively, well above the proportion for Asia as a whole (round about 50 per cent). However, in both cases, this proportion would fall sharply if the reality of mega-urban regions (MURs) were taken properly into account.

In Indonesia, the number of urban localities increased from 12,351 in 2000 to 15,786 in 2010, thus increasing the proportion of urban localities to total localities from 17.96 per cent to 20.46 per cent (Firman 2013: 3). The million cities all grew more slowly than the national population, with the exception of Bekasi, Tangerang, Depok and Makassar.

It is my great pleasure to be back at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) after many years and to have a chance to speak at the High-Level Conference on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) today.

It could be said that my ASEAN story has developed over the years for two reasons — interest and opportunity. Out of interest, during my studies in Australia and the United States in the 1960s, I studied and then wrote my dissertation on protectionism. When I came back to Thailand, my home country, and started working, I was determined to fight against protectionism, which was basically the industrial policies of that time.

Recalling the early 1970s, when countries in the region like Singapore and Malaysia started opening up their economies, I had opportunities to work with the National Economic and Social Development Board of Thailand. My work was on industrial and trade policies. At the same time, I was doing research on regional cooperation — on ASEAN, in particular. I knew at the time that economies of scale, not protectionism, would help a country to industrialize. So ASEAN economic cooperation would definitely enhance Thailand's industrialization process. We had, at that time, the Kansu Report on ASEAN economic cooperation, which supported this concept.

And when ASEAN held its first summit in Bali in 1976, the agenda on economic cooperation, to which I had made some contribution was very much derived from the Kansu Report's recommendations. The Report's recommendations were also the origin of the agreements on the ASEAN Preferential Trading Arrangements (PTA) and ASEAN Industrial Projects (AIP).

Before economic cooperation was brought to discussion seriously in 1976–77, political and security issues featured much more dominantly on ASEAN's agenda. The economic issue was brought up at the first summit, and became ASEAN's major concern during and after the second oil crisis in 1979.

The oil crisis was a wake-up call for ASEAN countries to accelerate the process of industrialization by means of export pro-motion. There was then a consensus among ASEAN policymakers about having a serious look at ASEAN economic cooperation. For this purpose, a high level Task Force was appointed in 1985, consisting of three members from each of ASEAN's five founding members — Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. I was a member of Thailand's team.

The U.S.-ASEAN Strategy Commission was organized by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to provide useful and practical recommendations to American policymakers with the objective of developing a long-term U.S. strategy to deal with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries and the ASEAN organization.

ASEAN is vitally important to the United States, but the United States’ current engagement is neither as comprehensive nor as strategic as U.S. interests warrant.

FINDINGS

1. 1. The economic, political, security, and people-to-people ties between the United States and ASEAN are fundamental to U.S. economic growth and security. ASEAN's numbers are compelling: 10 countries, more than 620 million people, and a $1.8 trillion gross domestic product. ASEAN is the United States’ fourth-largest overseas market, and U.S. goods exports conservatively account for 440,000 U.S. jobs. Prospects for continued high economic growth in the next several decades are very strong. The United States is the top foreign investor in ASEAN, with $165 billion invested, a third higher than U.S. investment in China and nearly10 times higher than in India. ASEAN has historic, cultural, and commercial linkages with the world's two largest countries, China and India, and sits in the middle of several strategically important sea-lanes, making the region's security and stability a core U.S. national security interest.

2. 2. In 2004, the United States was ASEAN's largest trading partner, with exports to ASEAN of $85 billion and imports of $87 billion, for a two-way total of $192 billion. Currently China is ASEAN's largest trading partner, with a two-way total of $293 billion in 2010. The United States is now ASEAN's fourth-largest trading partner. The implementation in 2010 of the China-ASEAN free trade agreement (FTA) has contributed to a significant increase in China-ASEAN trade and in the investments made by ASEAN in China and China in ASEAN. U.S. companies are at a trading disadvantage with many of their competitors in the region, particularly from the six countries that have signed the so-called ASEAN Plus free trade agreements: Australia, China, India, Japan, Korea, and New Zealand.

3. 3. The United States’ loss of market share in ASEAN can be attributed in part to the fact that since the mid-1990s U.S. business has turned its attention to opportunities in China's newly opening market and in part to China's vigorous economic engagement with ASEAN.

Sino-US disquiet over East Asia in recent years highlight the collective role that non-leading regional states have in exacerbating security dilemmas between major powers at moments of power transition. Security dilemmas occur when actors view their own attempts to enhance security as benign, but are seen as threatening by others — particularly competitors. Defending against perceived threats may consequently agitate potential rivals and ironically make other actors feel less secure. How regional states from Japan and Korea, through various ASEAN members along with Australia, individually respond to Chinese and US initiatives can unfortunately further aggravate Sino-US suspicions, even if inadvertently. After all, support from regional actors has influence on the success of bilateral, as well as multilateral, initiatives, arrangements, and institutions that ground US and Chinese efforts to maintain or modify the prevailing order in East Asia.

COOPERATION, TRANSITION, AND FRICTION

Regardless of whether power transition is real or perceived, expectations about substantial shifts in international politics can be disconcerting. The preeminent power — the United States in this case — worries about how to best maintain its interests and leading position, whereas the emergent power — China — frets about ways to sustain and entrench its growing prominence, while simultaneously addressing potential challenges impeding its rise. Beijing views its efforts to establish preeminence in East Asia as a natural expression of China's rights, while Washington sees retaining regional leadership as a preservation of long-standing American interests. Neither the United States nor China appear completely comfortable with fuller expressions of each other's goals in this regard, especially given uncertainties over the pace of power transition and the long-term viability of each other's competitive positions.

Individual choices that regional states make under such conditions of flux collectively influence the severity of the Sino-US security dilemma by affecting the context and environment in which Washington and Beijing operate. Govern-ments from Tokyo to Jakarta are figuring out whether and how much political capital to commit to existing arrangements, as well as when and how to seek alternatives that may involve a reduced US role. A tepid and slow readjustment from existing US-backed frameworks may result in a regional state missing new opportunities, while a too rapid and drastic response could potentially result in foregoing — or even undermining — key public goods and benefits the current system provides.

The governance and administrative institutions of ASEAN and ASEAN's process of institutionalization itself have come under increasing pressure over the last decade. There are no signs to suggest that ASEAN's expanding agenda is slowing down. Rather, the opposite appears to be the case.

In 2007, partly in response to increasing external pressures and the post-Cold War environment, ASEAN member-states committed to what must be the single most important institutional strengthening of ASEAN to date. They adopted the ASEAN Charter, which provides ASEAN with a legal identity.

The five articles in this section address new pressures on ASEAN institutions over the last decade and into the future. The article by Sokbunthoeun So focuses on challenges facing the ‘ASEAN Way’ from the flare-up of border tensions over the Prear Vihear temple between Cambodia and Thailand. So's article also shows how the post-Cold War expansion of ASEAN membership has added pressure on the informal norms of intra-ASEAN communication and action.

The next two articles by Shaun Narine and Ahmad Fuzi bin Abdul Razak focus on the ASEAN Charter. Narine provides a critical academic analysis of the ASEAN Charter and the idea of an ASEAN Community that the successful passage of the Charter stimulated. The author studies the mismatch between the norms and principles codified in the Charter and the history and present form of ASEAN interaction and practice. Ahmad Fuzi, a member of the ASEAN High Level Task Force that developed the ASEAN Charter, provides a practitioner's view of the development of the ASEAN Charter. He directly challenges the academic and journalistic criticisms about the depth and scope of the Charter.

Termsak Chalermpalanupap's article focuses on the challenges that awaited the new ASEAN Secretary-General, Vietnam's Mr Le Luong Minh, when he took on the job in 2013. He provides a practitioner's view of the broadening and deepening responsibilities of the ASEAN Secretary-General, and the ASEAN Secretariat more generally. The final article in this section is from the Asian Development Bank Institute's 2014 ASEAN 2030: Toward a Borderless Economic Community publication. It looks at the likely future responsibilities of the ASEAN Secretariat, and the recommended institutional reforms meant to effectively manage its growing workload and its centrality in regional economic integration.

INTRODUCTION

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), despite its origin as a loose and modest inter-governmental regional organisation aimed at preventing inter-state conflicts through economic and socio-cultural cooperation among its members, has now evolved into an association of sovereign states with a more ambitious agenda of regional integration. Indeed, when ASEAN took a formal decision to transform itself into an ASEAN Community in October 2003, member states declared, “an ASEAN Community shall be established comprising of three pillars, namely political and security cooperation, economic cooperation, and socio-cultural cooperation.”

In 2005, ASEAN leaders agreed on the need for ASEAN to have a charter that would “facilitate community building towards an ASEAN Community and beyond.” Indeed, as it promises to transform ASEAN into a more rules-based organisation rather than a loosely organised association, the ASEAN Charter serves as an important step towards, and a confirmation of ASEAN's commitment to, the realisation of the ASEAN Community.

Since its establishment in August 1967, criticisms of ASEAN have been primarily directed at deficiencies in the organisational structures and the slow pace of institu-tionalisation of the Association.

This paper argues that while ASEAN had in the past undertaken measures to strengthen and expand its institutions, and ASEAN's recent commitment to undertake greater institutionalisation efforts have been manifested in the adoption of the ASEAN Charter, the willingness of member states to rely on regional institutions is still circumscribed by member states’ attachment to the principle of sovereignty and overriding preference for maintaining unity amid regional diversity (as reflected in persistent inter-state problems and diverging interests).

THE EVOLUTION OF ASEAN's INSTITUTIONALISATION: THE PRIMACY OF “ASEAN WAY” AND THE IMPETUS FOR CHANGE

The First Three Decades (1967–1997)

When it was established in August 1967, ASEAN did not set for itself an ambitious task of becoming a regional organisation equipped with complex institutional structures and machinery in order to function effectively and immediately.

Indeed, the necessity to foster regional reconciliation constituted one key reason behind the formation of ASEAN.

Regional reconciliation through regional cooperation required a set of agreed principles, norms and rules that would guide the conduct of foreign relations among participating countries.

A NEW CONSCIOUSNESS ARISES

The political changes occurring in Malaysia since the Asian financial crisis have been persistent and profound. Most significantly, these have not led to the ruling coalition — which has ruled the country since independence almost 60 years ago — losing power.

This tight hold on power by the Barisan Nasional (BN) — a coalition of more than a dozen parties led by the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) — has largely been possible due to a race-based discourse and a race-based central policy put into place following racial riots in 1969 in Kuala Lumpur which has sought to advance the interests of the majority Malay community. Backed by draconian laws, legislative restrictions on the freedom of speech and assembly, and a tight control over the mass media, the BN has managed to survive all general elections — sometimes winning them with huge margins, as it did under the leadership of Dr Mahathir Mohamad in 1995.

This formidable power structure suffered its biggest shock in 1998, however, when Mahathir sacked his deputy and heir-apparent Anwar Ibrahim in September that year. Anwar refused to go in silence and instead took to the streets, organizing huge demonstrations throughout the country against the prime minister. On the night of 20 September, police stormed his house and Anwar was arrested, tried in cruel and humiliating fashion, and sentenced to 15 years on charges of abuse of power and sodomy. Thus began the reformasi movement that continues to foster political consciousness for a whole generation of young Malaysians.

The 18 years since Anwar's dismissal marks a new period in the political history of the country. In ways Anwar could not have foreseen — Mahathir certainly did not — the conflict between the two men precipitated a split in the Malay community that saw Anwar functioning as a lightning rod for discontented Malaysians, which surprisingly nurtured a powerful alternative coalition within ten years. The country began running up continuous budget deficits during this period, although strangely, Mahathir's vision to turn the country into an advanced nation by 2020 continues to be parroted.

Anwar was released in September 2004 after his conviction on the sodomy charge was overturned on appeal. His years in prison were also the final years of Mahathir's premiership.

This Third Volume of the ASEAN Reader series is published this year when the first phase of community-building in ASEAN is ending, and its next phase is being charted by the Association's political leaders. The forewords to the first volume by ASEAN Founding Fathers Thanat Khoman of Thailand and S. Rajaratnam of Singapore (published in 1992), and to the second volume by ISEAS Chairman, Professor Wang Gungwu (published in 2003), are included to refresh us on the origins of ASEAN and the continuing challenges the 48-year-old Association has been facing, and will continue to face into the future.

There are more than 80 articles in this Volume III by scholars and experts from Southeast Asia and beyond. They address issues from different perspectives, from the long-term view and country analysis, to comparative issues and specific challenges in ASEAN, Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific, to relations of major powers and their impacts on ASEAN and its members. The next phase of community-building in ASEAN beyond 2015 will be more challenging as the Association and the region face new and unprecedented challenges from within and from without. These include intensified US-China engagement, complex China-Japan relations, a more confident India, rising nationalism, widening income gaps within ASEAN countries, global economic uncertainties, and threats to human security in the region from international terrorism and contagious diseases. To ensure peace, security and prosperity, individual ASEAN countries and the region will have to work closely together in the next phase of ASEAN community-building. In the coming years, ASEAN may even see a new member, Timor-Leste.

Readers interested in the ASEAN Com-munity and in ASEAN's external engagements will find Volume III interesting. So also those keen to understand issues influencing the direction of regionalism in Southeast Asia and to see where the ASEAN Community is heading. Many of the articles in this third volume have been published previously, either by ISEAS or other publishers. We thank all the publishers for their permission to use the selected works.

This volume would not have been pos-sible without the efforts of the editorial team headed by Dr Ooi Kee Beng, Deputy Director of ISEAS, and including co-editors Dr Terence Chong, Dr Cassey Lee, Dr Malcolm Cook, and Ms Sanchita Basu Das. Mr Michael Yeo, as editorial assistant, provided sterling support for the team.

Recent crises, particularly the on-going sovereign debt crisis in the euro area economies, has provided momentum to greater regional financial cooperation in the region. Through the establishment of the Chiang Mai Initiative Multilateralisation (CMIM) and the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) in March 2010 and May 2011, respectively, substantial headway has been made in this regard. The role of AMRO as a surveillance office for the CMIM is vital to the overall success of regional financial cooperation; without a credible and qualified surveillance capacity, it is difficult to envision an effective CMIM.

RECENT COMMITMENTS

The CMIM

During the Annual AFMGM+3 Meeting in May 2012, several other major new commitments were announced. Responding to the potential need for a larger swap facility, the CMIM Executive Committee announced the doubling of the swap facility to $240 billion in May 2012. Given the adjusted contribution, while keeping the “purchasing multiples” unchanged, major ASEAN economies (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore) now have access to approximately $22.76 billion each, an increase from $4.55 billion previously.

At the same meeting, an increase in the IMF de-linked portion from 20% to 30% was also announced. A number of ASEAN+3 economies in fact proposed a higher de-link portion, but as a group eventually agreed to review the issue again in 2014, with the intention of further increasing the de-linked portion to 40%. During their deliberations, it was acknowledged that one of the key factors behind the doubling of the total swap facility and the rise in the de-linked portion is the recognition of the speedy establishment of the ASEAN+3 Macroeconomic Research Office (AMRO) and the timely delivery of well-received AMRO surveillance reports by the Executive Committee during the Deputies Meeting in Sendai, Japan in December 2011 and in Phnom Penh, Cambodia in March 2012. Furthermore, reflecting their appreciation of the urgency in anticipating and preventing future financial crisis, the ASEAN+3 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors approved the establishment of an additional function for the CMIM — a crisis prevention function, in addition to the crisis resolution function.

Under the current framework of the CMIM, a detailed set of operational guidelines was established, which would enable any swap requests to be processed efficiently and in a timely manner, typically within seven days of a request being made.

The US and China are groping towards a new equilibrium in their relationship with each other and with other countries in East Asia. Since the Second World War, East Asia has been very largely an American creation because it was the US that created conditions that facilitated the growth that is the most salient common characteristic of an otherwise very diverse region. China's rapid growth and re-emergence as a major regional and potentially global actor would not have been possible without the Sino-American rapprochement of the early 1970s and 1980s. But the US and China are now both freed of the constraints of the de facto anti-Soviet alliance of that period and China's transformation is transforming East Asia.

There is now a consensus across the region that while the US is still and will remain a necessary condition for the stability that is vital for continued growth, it is no longer a sufficient condition and needs to be supplemented — supplemented not supplanted — by some new architecture.

This is a consensus shared by US friends and allies and implicitly by China as well, at least for the present.

No one really knows what this new architecture will look like, but US-China relations will certainly be its central pillar. Neither does anyone know how long Washington and Beijing will take to reach a new accommodation with each other, although this will probably be a work of decades and not just a few years. In the meantime, we will all have to endure the trials and tribulations that inevitably arise when strategic adjustments of this scale are underway between major powers.

China is certainly rising. But America is not obviously in decline. I concede that if one were to assess the US solely by what is going on in its capital, one could be forgiven for coming to such a bleak conclusion. But it would be a mistake to forget that the most important developments in the US do not always occur in Washington DC. Equally if not more important are what happen in the fifty states of the United States, in the boardrooms of major American corporations, on Wall Street, and in American universities and research laboratories.

Four years since the 10th ASEAN Summit in Vientiane in 2004, the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) — one of the three pillars of the ASEAN Community — has remained as elusive as ever. The ASCC, as articulated in the Vientiane Action Programme (VAP), embodies the ultimate ASEAN aspiration to improve the quality of life of its peoples, promote equity in sharing the benefits of growth, and foster a shared cultural identity. To be sure, the VAP was unequivocal in specifying the strategies to fulfil these aspirations — building a community of caring societies that address the issues of poverty and equity, promoting sustainable management of the environment and natural resources, managing the social impacts of economic integration, and promoting an ASEAN identity. But the ASEAN process that would implement these strategies has not been easy to put in place.

From the outset, it was envisaged that each of the three pillars of the ASEAN Community — political, economic and socio- cultural — would be guided by a blueprint that would set concrete and time-bound targets. While the blueprint of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) has been completed, that of the ASCC is still a work-in-progress, and ASEAN countries have yet to agree on its structure and implementation modality. Some countries have expressed unease about having to commit to specific milestones; others have suggested that an update of the VAP would be sufficient in lieu of having a blueprint.

The unease about having an ASCC blueprint, which implies some degree of precision in terms of targets and timing, is rooted in a number of reasons. Social sector initiatives have been carried out primarily through project-based (functional) cooperation since the early years of ASEAN. In many cases, functional cooperation projects have been designed without the benefit of rigorous sector analysis, often resulting in poorly designed projects with limited and largely unsustainable benefits. Countries realize that a blueprint that would simply compile or aggregate these projects will not be meaningful. Furthermore, the number of ASEAN functional cooperation areas (sectors) has increased considerably, making it difficult to prioritize projects. The lack of a unifying sector framework in most cases has diminished the coherence and focus needed to plan for a strategic trajectory of cooperation.