Chairman of the Supervisory Board,

Centre for Strategic & International Studies in Jakarta.

ASEAN's 30 years' record of existence and cooperation will assure that,despite all the recent criticism toward this regional institution, it will survive. It has created peace and stability in a volatile Asian regiononce considered to be the Balkans of Asia. That is an achievement that is not going to be trampled with or easily revoked

However, ASEAN cannot remain as an interstate regional institution, as conceived of by its founding fathers over 30 years ago, if it wants to stay relevant. ASEAN has been successful as a regional institution that has facilitated an intensive process of integration among its member'ssocieties. To be able to respond to the new challenges of globalization ASEAN must be turned into a Southeast Asian Community. That means that ASEAN societies will become much more integrated in the future and cooperation in every field should become much closer. This is the essenceof the ASEAN Vision 2020 produced by the Leaders in December 1997 in Kuala Lumpur.

ASEAN's integration should be rules-based and supported by better institutionalized regional cooperation. Here, the region can learn from the European Union (EU); aspects of its cooperation and its achievement could be examined more carefully. To become a community, ASEAN needs more norms and institutions. It will not be as elaborate as those of the EU,but it surely must involve more than a state-to-state based institution.

The EU has been successful particularly in responding to the new challenges of globalization, namely by developing multi-identities and interdependence. This means that the individual has to be at once a citizen of a state, a member of a region, and of the globe in a balanced manner. Within the state, a citizen can also be a member of one or several social groupings, including ethnic and religious. Being a member of the EU has created the tradition of how to balance those various identities.

Non-governmental organizations (NGO's) and civil societies are also increasingly becoming important actors in international relations.Acceptance of this new phenomena has been easier for EU members because that regional institution already has established practices and a tradition of dealing with each other as well as limited state sovereignty at the regional level. This has been a very useful building block for coping with a new interdependence. Globalization also brought about changes in every field of human and social activity. Regional solidarity and cooperation can help overcome this.

Due to the financial crisis, which has become a full-blown economic one with serious social-political implications, ASEAN's attention and priorities will be largely on domestic problems. Governments may become more inward looking. A certain pessimism can also be discerned among the public and the governments on the future of ASEAN. These reactions,although quite natural, have to be overcome, because the achievements inEast Asia in the last 30 years are real and resulted from hard work,sacrifices, and to some extend good political economy. That basic strengthand dynamism are still present.

But the strategy of development in the crisis countries needs to be changed and the way regionalism has been pursued has to be improved, in order to be able to cope with the new challenges of globalization. To overcome this "ASEAN pessimism", ASEAN has to set clearly its vision of the future, namely to build a community in South East Asia.

It has to create a viable plan and program as the EU has done when it experienced the so-called "Euro-sclerosis" in the late 70's. The idea of a South East Asian Community should be achieved through a deepening of cooperation in various fields.

The economic crisis is the most urgent of ASEAN's problems and thus, it should be given priority. This has been the focus of the ASEAN Summitin Hanoi in December 1998. Despite the crisis, the leaders are determined to keep ASEAN economies open and in fact they agreed on accelerating the implementation of an ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (AFTA), and the ASEAN Investment Area (AIA).

In the financial field, there is support for greater transparency and the development of an early warning system is an important start fordeveloping closer macro-economic cooperation and coordination in the longer term. The idea of a common currency for ASEAN is equally important. But more concrete, short-term measures need to be made in each of the crisis-affected countries, particularly the restructuring of the banking and financial sector.

In the political field closer cooperation means closer consultations and coordination of policies. In the first instance this should aim at overcoming outstanding and unfinished business, such as border delineations, and other problems that have caused tensions across borders,such as the haze, illegal immigration, illicit drug trafficking, and spillovers of border clashes. Consultation and cooperation have taken place before without ASEAN going public about it. In fact, domestic instabilities should also be a concern of other members, because they could have regional spillovers. This is a possibility in regard to the Indonesian crisis in the near future. What is important now is to develop venues and ways, or rules and norms on how this could be done in anASEAN context or bilaterally in the future. On the NGO side, this type of intervention has gone a long way. They have gone public about it, and to a large extent this has been accepted.

In a community every member of ASEAN should be concerned about theothers,and there should be ways and means to express these and to provide advice or even criticisms. Another idea for ASEAN political cooperation is to enhance the East Asian Summit (EAS) organized annually by ASEAN, to become a forum for consultation and coordination of policies for the wider EastAsian region, similar to that of the G-7.

ASEAN may become more inward looking temporarily due to the crisis. It also lacks the critical mass and influence needed to face the new andformidable challenges of globalization. There is also the need to revitalize the multilateral institutions in the region such as APEC,ARF,and ASEM. These institutions lack a strong inner-core. This is the rationale for closer cooperation among East Asian economies. The EAS should not aim at becoming another full-fledged regional organization,because the existing ones are adequate. The main purpose is policy consultation and coordination. In addition to the ASEAN-10 and the three East Asian countries, (China, Japan, and South Korea) in the medium term Australia and New Zealand should also be invited, because they are important members of the region. Only by strengthening this cooperation can the East Asian region have some influence globally.

Another important political cooperation is to develop a comprehensive plan to assist the new members of ASEAN to become involved more effectively in regional affairs, to assist them in their economic development (which has experienced a setback due to the regional economic crisis) and to help them in coping with their social political problems. This plan should be formulated with each of the new members. It is crucial to prevent the development of a two-tier membership that could become another source of friction in the future.

In the end, ASEAN should develop into a community that is open economically, democratic politically, and humane with social justice socially, as formulated so well in ASEAN's Vision 2020. To make this possible, think-tanks, academics, NGO's and civil society have an important task. Since governments are currently preoccupied with other things,the second track should take on the task of developing new ideas and concepts,have a debate on how ASEAN can face the new challenges, and identify whatASEAN's future as a community entails. It is not only because of the crisis that non-governmental institutions should fill in the gaps left by governments and bureaucratic entities, but essentially because ASEAN needs their participation, ideas, and commitment to make the ASEAN Community a reality in the future.

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