BANGKOK ¨C As Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand gear up to host major world summits in November, the 55-year-old Association of Southeast Asian Nations is facing an existential crisis, owing to severe internal splits over Russia¡¯s invasion of Ukraine, Myanmar¡¯s military coup and other issues.
The 2007 ASEAN Charter¡¯s vision of deeper political, economic, security and sociocultural integration is no more. Salvaging what¡¯s left will require accepting this reality and regrouping accordingly.
Notwithstanding past bureaucratic and functional pledges to do more together, ASEAN¡¯s regional integration has always been shallow. Intraregional trade in goods remains low, at 21.3%, and trade in services trade is under 12%, according to data from the ASEAN Secretariat. Moreover, 88% of investment in the region comes from outside sources. Unlike the European Union, with its economic integration through a single market, ASEAN has emphasized cross-border connectivity through hard and soft infrastructure, from roads and railways to tourism and people-to-people contacts.
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