Established on the last day of 2015, with three main pillars, the ASEAN Community has become one of the most successful regional organizations in the world. The inception represents a historical mark of regional interconnecting process at a higher and closer level. The Community shows the scope of a new institution in the South East Asia region.

ASEAN Community – A historical necessity

After the Cold War, though there were many economic, political and security centers in the Asia – Pacific region, there remained a shortage of mechanisms for negotiation, particularly methods for building trust. It was because countries were concerned about establishing a common security system. Meanwhile, the region not only became one of the most dynamic hubs in the world, but also the place of increasingly severe competition among major powers. On the other hand, in the region, there exists differences in culture, socio-economic development level and political regime, territorial disputes, religious conflicts, and arm races among countries. Moreover, in the last decade of the 20^th Century, the region also experienced major changes, including the U.S withdrawal of troop from the Philippines in November 1991; the collapse of the USSR in December 1992, and China’s territorial claim in the East Sea with its increasing use of coercive measures. In economic field, though integration started, it did not meet expectation. Economic crisis and backwardness were ever inherent. Facing these challenges, the idea of establishing  an ASEAN Community was first mentioned in December 1997. Accordingly, on the occasion of the 30^th anniversary of ASEAN foundation, Heads of state/government of ASEAN countries approved an important document, namely “ASEAN vision 2020” with a comprehensive aim was to make an ASEAN community conscious of its ties of history, aware of its cultural heritage and bound by a common regional identity. To realize that goal, in the Declaration of Asean Concord II announced in October 2003, Heads of State/Government of ASEAN agreed on the foundation of an ASEAN Community in 2020 with three main pillars, namely: ASEAN Political – Security Community,   ASEAN Economic Community, and ASEAN Social – Cultural Community. However, facing the fast and complicated evolutions of the regional and world situation, in January 2007, in Cebu, Philippines, Asean leaders agreed to foster the block’s internal integration in 2015 and on 31^st December 2015, ASEAN Community was officially founded. The foundation of ASEAN Community with new institution orginated from the  situation of the world, the region and of each country.

Leaders of ASEAN countries showing their commitments (Photo: VOV)

The scope of a new institution in the region

Over the past years, basing on ASEAN Charter, its legal foundation and other dynamic and creative cooperative mechanisms, ASEAN has experienced positive changes and gained significant achievements in various fields. Noticeably, in the field of peace and security, ASEAN created mechanisms that can be considered breakthroughs such as: ASEAN Regional Forum, ASEAN Defence Minister Meeting, ASEAN Defence Minister Meeting Plus; mechanism for solving territorial disputes like the Declaration of Conduct of Parties in the East Sea, etc, thereby changing the rivalry into dialogue and cooperation in the South East Asia region.

In the social – cultural realm, ASEAN pays increasing attention to human – oriented activities for the benefits of people in the region. In particular, various set out goals related to civil life have been implemented, such as: fostering social welfare, eradicating violence over women and children, strengthening cooperation in preventing and controlling infectious diseases, etc . Especially, regarding the globalization and international integration which are growing deeper and wider, ASEAN has focused on economic development and regional connectivity to support and boost its member economies. Thereby, ASEAN Free Trade Area was established. According to the block’s statistics, since the beginning of 2000, ASEAN internal economic cooperation has brought about major results. ASEAN countries all enjoy sustainable development with high economic growth rate. Commercial link is increasingly broadened and effective. All these created conditions and ground for the foundation of ASEAN Community on the 31^st December 2015, 5 years earlier than the initial plan. The inception of the ASEAN Community not only represents high consensus and determination in reinforcing connectivity and cooperation among its members but also marks a dramatic change in quality of the association – a significant achievement after nearly 50 years of development for peace and prosperity in the region. In reality, ASEAN Community has been considered  one of the most successful regional organizations with full legal and policy documents. Accordingly, through its operation, ASEAN Community is showing the scope of a new institution aiming at fostering internal cooperation in all three fields: politic – security, economy, and culture – society, as well as cooperation between ASEAN and its partners presented in the following aspects:

First, in politics and security, ASEAN has moved from trust building mechanism to reconciliation methods. Thereby, ASEAN respects and multiplies values of the established standards of conduct, such as: Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), Southeast Asian Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty (SEANWFZ), ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the East Sea (DOC), and will soon come up with a legally binding Code of Conduct of countries both inside and outside the region. On this basis, principles on democracy, rule of law, and governance, etc, will soon be spread and integrated in policies and reality of the ASEAN Political – Security Community, so as  to narrow the gap and increase the similarities in perception and action of its members. Besides, ASEAN has also considered a mechanism for quick reaction particularly in the settlement of challenges in the region, as well as methods for preventing conflicts and solving disputes in the East Sea among ASEAN members and between ASEAN and major powers outside the region, etc. Accordingly, besides continuing to implement the DOC, Six-point principles on the East Sea (2012), ASEAN should promote consulting mechanism with involved parties to reach a Code of Conduct (COC) while strengthening cooperation with countries outside the region through multilateral forums to settle the disputes by peaceful means on the basic of international laws. With these mechanisms, ASEAN is capable of playing a central role in building a more peaceful and stable region for people in South East Asian countries - one important condition for realizing the goals of ASEAN Vision 2025.

Second, as for economic pillar, basing on the existing free trade agreements, ASEAN will speed up the implementation of trade and service linking mechanisms, fostering cooperation and providing favorable condition for investment in “sensitive” sectors as: finance, capital market, telecommunication, and infrastructure, etc. Thereby, it creates conditions for a regionally unified,, interconnected and highly competitive economy; for implementing commitments on commerce, goods, service, investment flow, labour, business and capital in order to foster growth in productivity, creativity, technological application, and knowledge in an equal, transparent comparative environment and increasing involvement in global values. To date, beside signing regional free trade agreements with its partners, ASEAN has also operated a number of mechanisms for strengthening cooperation with other regions in the world, firstly the signing of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which marks the block’s determination in playing its central role and shaping economy for emerging economies and will become the one of the biggest free trade areas in the world, besides WTO.

Third, the aim of the ASEAN Cultural – Social Community after 2015 is not only to improve standard of living, meeting the development demands of both today and tomorrow generations, but also to set out regulations for protecting regional people from challenges, including disasters and calamities. To that end, ASEAN has carried out a number of humanitarian policies in order to attract a comprehensive participation of people of all strata in intergration with the community, including those relating to people’s daily life such as: learning condition, transportation, consuming, etc. Accordingly, Asean people will have more choices of goods, services, education, jobs, and business opportunities. The rights of women, children, the elderly and vulnerable groups will be protected. Moreover, ASEAN will also facilitate people’s participation and their responsible commitment to the process of building the Community. Accordingly, ASEAN citizens will be able to participate in the making and assessing policies, in the building of action program, and in giving feedbacks on results of those policies. These are important issues which will connect people with each other and with the community, contributing to building a background and a common and sustainable identity for ASEAN.

However, due to the fact that ASEAN consists of 10 countries with different histories, cultures, religions, economic models, political institutions, thus there exist many obstacles to the realization of the Community’s goals. In addition, right in the internal affairs of some member countries, there remain complicacies and instabilities. Even in some cases, a member, for its own interest, may try to separate the association. Therefore, international opinion holds that, to integrate and thrive together in a common roof of ASEAN, each of its member should explore its internal and external potentials to timely meet the goals and principles of the ASEAN Charter making contribution to building an ever more powerful community.

Ngo Quyen