Cambodia, ASEAN and the Asian crisis

Cambodia, ASEAN and the Asian crisis

During a ceremony in Hanoi on April 30, Cambodia formally
joined the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as its
10th member. Membership in ASEAN is an important step in
Cambodia's efforts to rejoin the international community. But the
organization as a whole is in no mood to celebrate the occasion.
Since the onset of the Asian currency crisis in 1997, ASEAN
members have been preoccupied with their own problems and have
shown less enthusiasm for expanding the grouping.

Rapid economic growth created the conditions that enabled
ASEAN to open up to new members, but it also exacerbated economic
inequalities in the region and focused more attention on the wide
disparities in political development, democratization and human
rights records. Since the growth of the economies of Southeast
Asia has ground to a halt, these disparities have become a burden
for ASEAN as a whole.

The currency crisis struck just as ASEAN was beginning to
assert its leadership, forcing its members to concentrate on
economic recovery. ASEAN may now have to postpone its plans to
inaugurate the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) until beyond the year
2002. Since increasing its membership to 10 states will not
guarantee a larger voice for ASEAN, it is imperative that the
organization concentrate on narrowing the political and economic
disparities between its member states.

-- The Mainichi Shimbun, Tokyo