ALREADY underway is the 48th Asean Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM) held at the Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur. A mature regional organisation of 48 years, Asean is today a community of nations having grown in number from the original five to the current 10. Once, its main concern was regional security within and without the group. Nowadays, it encompasses aspirations of building a community of cooperation and understanding. That there is agreement to renew a commitment to keep the region free of nuclear arms is an example of the members’ shared principles on security. But the recognition that the world must also be made safe is manifest in the efforts of the Southeast Asian Nuclear Weapon-Free-Zone Commission to get the nuclear powers, namely, the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, to sign the Nuclear Weapons Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Such initiatives aside, Asean will this year set the stage for the realisation of the Asean Economic Community (AEC), an economic cooperation that will enhance the economic competitiveness of the region in every respect. Parallel to this is the drive to become the One Asean Community, where its combined population of over 600 million will perceive of themselves as not merely being part of Asean, but rather “they are Asean”. It is a people-centred transformation that will benefit the people directly. Hence, the theme of Malaysia’s chairmanship of the grouping this year: Our People, Our Community, Our Vision. Further integration, said the prime minister at the official opening of the 48th AMM, is aimed at building the world’s fourth largest economy by 2050 and that the Asian century must also be an Asean Century. Striving to make Asean a region to be reckoned with does not in any way imply parochialism. Asean’s 10 dialogue partners — Japan, Canada, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the European Union, the United States, China, Russia and India — is testimony to its reaching out to connect with the rest of the world to play its part in ensuring that peace and security are maintained. It is this forum that plays an important role in changing times where countries are beset with new challenges, among them transboundary crimes, terrorism and disasters, that demand cooperation and swift action between nations. For instance, human trafficking involving Rohingyas urgently require resolution. Myanmar’s membership allows for a diplomatic approach. That the South China Sea is a bone of contention between China and the US over the disputed Spratly Islands, which involve some members of Asean, makes the latter an amenable platform to ease tensions between the two nuclear powers.
Southeast Asia, being a strategic geopolitical location, affords Asean some influence over what goes on in the immediate vicinity. As expressed by the foreign affairs minister, it is “a cockpit of international rivalry” that is the reason why security became the push factor towards the formation of Asean. But now that peace and stability characterises the region and the inter-dependence between members is recognised, the focus must now be on the Asean Community Vision 2025, the 10-year road map to be adopted at the 27th Asean Summit in November.