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ASEAN Takes Off
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17859 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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3 / 1990 |
1,011 Words |
| Author
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Frank Tatu
Frank Tatu, a former American Foreign Service officer who has
served his entire career in Southeast Asia, is currently
writing a book on ASEAN. |
As the much-touted "Pacific Century" approaches, the miracle of economic development around the Asian Rim continues a pace with few signs of abatement.
Prime spokes of the Pacific hub are the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members. Brunei and Singapore have the most robust economies. The remaining four members are, in order of 1987 per capita income, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia, at: $1,800; $850; $590; and $450, averaging out to $925.
Note that Singapore is the only ASEAN member that is an Asian Tiger. Because of its growing economy, like Singapore, Brunei is also, to its distress, ineligible for American trade preferences. Brunei's $15,390 per capita income exceeds the $8,500 limit for GSP preferential treatment. Brunei, however, a tiny sultanate ruled by the world's richest man, is absolutely sui generis and cannot be addressed in any general discussion of either economic dynamics or ASEAN, to which it became the sixth and last member in 1984 [see,"Brunei's Abundant Fortunes"].
While the six ASEAN nations occupy a total land area less than a third of that of the United States, the ASEAN population of 321.2 million exceeds both that of the United States (247 million) and of the European Community with which it expects to be in direct economic competition after 1992.
ASEAN was established in August 1967 primarily as a regional instrument of economic, social, and cultural cooperation to enhance cohesion, self-reliance, and "resilience" (an ASEAN signatory term). Because of competitive aspects of the economies and
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