Comment on “Politics of Association of Southeast Asian Nations Economic Cooperation”

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-3131.2011.01177.x
• Author: Takashi TERADA
• Published date: 01 June 2011
• Date: 01 June 2011

Comment on “Politics of Association

of Southeast Asian Nations

Economic Cooperation”

Takashi TERADA†

Waseda University

JEL codes: F1, F4, F5

Severino (2011) usefully informs us about what processes and issues the Association of

Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has come through to promote regional economic

cooperation and what obstacles ASEAN has to overcome in the process toward the estab-

lishment of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015. Severino succinctly

describes a constellation of ASEAN economic cooperation schemes with concise expla-

nations. His paper will serve as a useful historical guide in this field. This is an important

exercise since evaluations of ASEAN’s role in regional cooperation, including regional

integration in a wider East Asia, are starkly divided among international relations special-

ists. Sound empirical research on ASEAN’s effort to accomplish the AEC is required.

One of the most controversial debates regarding ASEAN cooperation has evolved

around the so-called ASEAN Way, its guiding principle which informally stipulates non-

intervention, nonbinding, and consensus-based decision-making approaches to regional

cooperation. For instance, the ASEAN Way is considered to be an impediment to a high

level of regional institutionalization because it tends to avoid transnational cooperation

which often requires the imposition of regulations and obligations on each state. The

ASEAN Way is mainly applied to the political and security fields, but the basic elements

can also be identified even in the economic field. Regional integration through Free Trade

Agreements (FTAs)which involve legally binding provisions for the reciprocal exchange of

preferences that discriminate against nonpartner countries is inharmonious with the

ASEAN Way. It seems that a mismatchbetween ASEAN norms and economic integration

practices has hindered the further institutionalization of ASEAN economic cooperation,

something which Severino (2011) explains in a great deal of detail.aepr_117741..42

One of the most important issues Severino raises concerns ASEAN’s cooperation with

external larger states and its role in a wider regional integration framework. This is

because what has sustained ASEAN’s need for the further promotion of integration

schemes to accomplish economic growth is the need to secure external markets and elicit

wider economic cooperation from larger extraregional states, rather than just sharing the

benefits to be accrued from intraregional cooperation. In effect, nearly 80% of ASEAN’s

trade has been with non-ASEAN countries, and the exports of Indonesia and the Philip-

pines to the ASEAN region are less than 10% and 6%, respectively, of their total exports,

†Correspondence: TakashiTerada, Organization for Asian Studies, Waseda University, 1-6-1 Nishi-

waseda Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 169-8050 Japan. Email: t-terada@waseda.jp

doi: 10.1111/j.1748-3131.2011.01177.x Asian Economic Policy Review (2011) 6, 41–42

© 2011 The Author

Asian Economic Policy Review © 2011 Japan Center for Economic Research 41