ASEAN Summit 2016 in Vientiane, Laos

Yahoo Newsroom•September 7, 2016

ricky l11 seconds ago

Many postings here belittle the ASEAN as weak alliance and not significance.

But no one actually understand the dynamic and importance of ASEAN alliance and why we spend so much time and held so many meetings on ASEAN alliance.

The significance are :-

(1) Security and Safety

(2) Economic

(3) Influence

(1) Forming ASEAN alliance will ensure our security and safety as well as ASEAN members' security and safety.

Neighbours bound to have friction - due to close proximity - for eg. brushes on territorial dispute, haze, land reclaimation, immigration etc. Without ASEAN alliance and framework - where Leaders come to gather annually for meetings and bond building, misunderstanding and miscomm will arise - leading to tension, conflict and confrontation.

ASEAN alliance will prevent, or reduce such tension and misunderstanding - as being a member of ASEAN economic and security grouping - where collectivelly there are mutual benefits, any issues can be discuss, communicated and resolved through dialogue, communication, arbitration and mediation - without resorting to military confrontation.

Also there will be more cooperation in intelligence sharing on terrorism - as trust among members will be build up over time - and there will be less distrust among members.

(2) ASEAN alliance will mean forming a large common market - which will facilitate trade. The trade within ASEAN has grown significantly. And ASEAN trade as a whole with big power such as China, US, EU etc has also grown significantly as an Economic Bloc.

Thus collectively as an ASEAN Economic Bloc, we have a higher and bigger bargaining power in Trade Agreement with other Economic Blocs - as compared to individual Countries negotiating with other Economic Blocs.

Thus as ASEAN, we have benefited Economically and contribute to our prosperity and wealth.

Also within ASEAN, competition will be more healthy as there will be more opportunities business cooperation and alliance - and not severe unhealthy competition.

(3) ASEAN as a Bloc will have bigger and larger influence (with members of about 600 million people) - in terms of security, economic, social influence - when dealing with other big powers.

So though ASEAN is a loose alliance, it is an important alliance.