With the exception of Singapore, which can be considered a developed city-state, most members of ASEAN are still developing nations, with a few still in the under-developed phase of growth. In addition, there is great…
Tag: ASEAN
Missed Opportunities: Inward Focus on Domestic Issues and Parochialism May Lead to a Start-up Delay or “Watered Down” ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in 2015 ASEAN potential as a major trade player Although the pundits…
Supranational ASEAN is Super Folly for Southeast Asia. US reveals ASEAN as neo-imperial consolidation as Clinton calls on bloc to present a “united front” against China. In the literary classic “Gulliver’s Travels,” the protagonist, Lemuel Gulliver, finds himself shipwrecked on an island of tiny people called, “Lilliputians.” While he slept, the Lilliputians used their tiny rope and stakes to tie Gulliver down. When he awoke, though many times larger than any one of the Lilliputians, he was immobilized and at their mercy. This analogy is important because it represents the precise example used by Wall Street-London corporate-financier interests in producing policy for the containment of China. In 1997, a very different world from today, where the idea of a multipolar world order uprooting Anglo-American hegemony was still a fanciful notion, Western policy makers literally used this analogy to describe their strategy of encircling and containing China.
China and its third largest trading partner, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), have both expressed a similar stance Thursday — that protecting common interests should be prioritized through deepened cooperation. The message came…