ASEAN's future

The annual round of ASEAN foreign ministers' meetings has become such a complex event that it is sometimes difficult to sort out the important bits from the details.

In some respects this year's meetings appeared bland, but on a handful of important issues, ASEAN has taken significant steps toward further future change.

The most obvious achievement in historical terms was the formal admission of Vietnam as ASEAN's seventh member. In Brunei this might not have appeared too exciting since all the preparations had been concluded in advance.

Nevertheless, the achievement was historical.

With so many past expectations ending in disappointment, one important but intangible virtue remains -- the high level of comfort ASEAN's members enjoy in each others' company.

Now a former enemy is on the way hopefully to becoming a good friend, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations might never be the same again.

A lot of questions remain to be settled about Vietnam's participation in ASEAN, however.

Some issues dominate: whether Vietnam will be able to attend all the many ASEAN meetings, and whether ASEAN can streamline its increasingly cumbersome structure of committees, and whether Vietnam can meet the challenge of the ASEAN free Trade Area, even if it is allowed a three-year delay.

Next on ASEAN's main fixtures list are the economic ministers' meeting in October and the Bangkok Summit in December. The Sultan of Brunei's proposal for free trade to be achieved in 2000 instead of 2003 is likely to be discussed seriously.

So are further institutional reforms.

ASEAN's new members and the increasing scope of subjects covered -- service and intellectual property could be next in line for ASEAN liberalization -- will require yet another overhaul for the secretariat and for the various committees.

We will still have to wait some years to see if any of this has a real impact on the economies or the securities of the region. But for the time being, the pace of ASEAN's transformation has quietly stepped up gear.

-- The Bangkok Post