Fascinating to read The Economist's take on the recent round of ASEAN summitry (18 Nov). This is not a paper that has always been sympathetic to ASEAN. So it's interesting to see this Banyan writer expounding on the reasons ASEAN was never able to plunge down the European path (even while it acknowledged Europe's achievements), and concluding that we should “expect ASEAN to stay loose, broad, and talkative. Endless summits don’t necessarily have to result in an ever-closer union, thank goodness.”
There are two things here. What a good job, firstly, that ASEAN has always politely resisted the heavy pressure from many academics and other observers to “become like Europe faster”. ASEAN is a lumbering old thing, and exceedingly frustrating at times, but Europe's traumas certainly illustrate that conservatism in region-building is not always a bad thing.
And this piece also illustrates the speed with which things are changing in SEA this year. In light of the European fire-storm, my piece a couple of months ago, inspired in part by work earlier in the year with Indonesian students, seems almost quaint.
But the wheel will no doubt turn. Europe (we all sincerely hope) will find a way out of its problems. Maybe this way will involve the deeper integration of a limited number of core states. Maybe the calls for ASEAN to learn from its European cousin will one day fire up again. Then it will be time to learn all over again that regionalisms are not all the same.
There are two things here. What a good job, firstly, that ASEAN has always politely resisted the heavy pressure from many academics and other observers to “become like Europe faster”. ASEAN is a lumbering old thing, and exceedingly frustrating at times, but Europe's traumas certainly illustrate that conservatism in region-building is not always a bad thing.
And this piece also illustrates the speed with which things are changing in SEA this year. In light of the European fire-storm, my piece a couple of months ago, inspired in part by work earlier in the year with Indonesian students, seems almost quaint.
But the wheel will no doubt turn. Europe (we all sincerely hope) will find a way out of its problems. Maybe this way will involve the deeper integration of a limited number of core states. Maybe the calls for ASEAN to learn from its European cousin will one day fire up again. Then it will be time to learn all over again that regionalisms are not all the same.
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