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