Whither ASEAN community?
“This year, ASEAN still barely resembles a community in its true sense of the word as its leaders have now come up with a new vision for 2045 with even more audacious targets. By setting an even longer time frame, those responsible for drafting the vision would probably not be around or too old to answer questions if the vision fails to materialize.”
“The Vision 2045 envisages a more ‘resilient, innovative, dynamic and people-centered’ ASEAN community, big words that pose a big challenge for member governments to implement. The vision links these goals with the four strategic pillars, namely political and security, economy, social and culture and connectivity. Of these, it is the political and security pillar that is slowing down the entire community project.”
“Forging a community from a collection of nations governed under very different systems, an absolute monarchy, a communist state, a junta, authoritarians and semi-democracies, is hard, if not impossible. The European Union, in contrast, required former communist East European states to meet basic guarantees of rights and freedoms and run democratic elections before they could join. Their shared values are almost non-existent in ASEAN.”
https://www.thejakartapost.com/opinion/2025/06/05/whither-asean-community.html