Chapter 1

Beginnings and
Expansion

On 8 August 1967, five men representing five Southeast Asian

countries signed in the Thai capital of Bangkok a declaration
establishing a new regional association — the Association of
Southeast Asian Nations. The five men were Adam Malik,
Presidium Minister for Political Affairs and Minister for Foreign
Affairs of Indonesia; Tun Abdul Razak, Deputy Prime Minister,
Minister for Defence and Minister for National Development
of Malaysia; Narciso Ramos, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of
the Philippines; S. Rajaratnam, Minister for Foreign Affairs of
Singapore; and Thanat Khoman, Minister for Foreign Affairs
of Thailand.
The document that they signed, entitled the ASEAN Declara-
tion and thereafter also known as the Bangkok Declaration, had
five preambular and five operative paragraphs. It pledged their
governments to seven “aims and purposes”:

• Economic growth, social progress and cultural development;

• Regional peace and stability;
• Economic, social, cultural, technical, scientific and adminis-
trative collaboration;
• Mutual assistance in training and research;

1
2 ASEAN

• Collaboration in agriculture and industry, trade, transporta-

tion and communications, and the improvement of living
standards;
• Promotion of Southeast Asian studies; and
• Cooperation with regional and international organizations.

Underlying these objectives was the common determination of

the five countries to live in peace with one another, to settle
their disputes peacefully rather than by force, and to cooperate
with one another for common purposes. Proclaiming itself in
the Bangkok Declaration to be “open for participation to all
States in the South-East Asian Region subscribing to (its) aims,
principles and purposes”, the new association was the first to
seek to bring all of Southeast Asia — the area between the
South Asian sub-continent in the west and the Pacific Ocean
in the east and between China, Japan and Korea in the north
and Australia in the south — into one inter-governmental
organization.
To be sure, there were existing regional inter-state organiza-
tions in Southeast Asia. One was the MAPHILINDO of Malaysia,
the Philippines and Indonesia. The other was the Association
of Southeast Asia (ASA) among Malaysia, the Philippines and
Thailand. However, these were narrow in purpose and limited
in base and scope. MAPHILINDO consisted of the three Malay-
based populations of Southeast Asia and sought to subsume
their conflicting territorial claims and ideological differences.
ASA confined itself to economic and cultural purposes and
excluded the largest country in the region, Indonesia, and
the states of mainland Southeast Asia other than Thailand.
Both had rather short lives. MAPHILINDO lasted only from
1963 until ASEAN superseded it in 1967. ASA existed for-
mally from 1961 to 1967, closing down shortly after ASEAN
was formed.
Beginnings and Expansion 3

On the other hand, ASEAN imposed no limits on its

ambitions and goals as a regional entity and set for itself a
comprehensive array of objectives for regional cooperation. As
noted above, ASEAN explicitly pronounced itself open to mem-
bership to all Southeast Asian nations. Indeed, the ministers
of ASEAN’s founding nations had sought the inclusion of
Burma and Cambodia as original members. However, both
countries turned down the invitations, being anxious to preserve
their status as resolutely non-aligned nations and were suspicious
of the orientation of the new association in the Cold War, which
was then at its height. Subsequently, after the unification of
Vietnam and the consolidation of Laos under a new regime in
1975, ASEAN reached out to the Indochinese states, a process
cut short by the Vietnamese entry into Cambodia towards the
end of 1978. After the settlement of the Cambodian conflict in
1991–93, ASEAN did so again. By 1999, ASEAN had embraced
all of Southeast Asia (until the emergence in 2002 of the new
nation of Timor-Leste, which has expressed its desire to join
ASEAN eventually). Despite periodic predictions of its demise, not
only has ASEAN remained alive for more than 40 years; it has
constantly adjusted to changing times — albeit not sufficiently,
according to its critics — and has served as the hub and manager
of a growing number of broad regional enterprises. The major
powers, as well as the United Nations and its agencies, have,
in a continuing process, sought to broaden and deepen their
association with it.

UNPROMISING CIRCUMSTANCES
ASEAN was born in the most unpromising circumstances. To
begin with, the founding nations were marked by great diver-
sity. The people of Indonesia were overwhelmingly Muslim
4 ASEAN

in religion but blessed with a wide variety of cultural traits.

Malaysia was made up of the Malay sultanates and the Strait
Settlements (Singapore having broken off in 1965) on the Malay
Peninsula and Sabah and Sarawak across the South China Sea.
It was politically controlled by Malay Muslims but economically
dominated by Chinese Malaysians. Thailand was predominantly
Theravada Buddhist, and the Philippines Christian. Singapore
was a multi-ethnic society built on racial and religious tolerance
and equilibrium. The Philippines, Singapore and Thailand had
significant Muslim minorities. Not least, ethnic and religious
groups straddled national boundaries.
The ebb and flow of migrants and traders throughout mari-
time Southeast Asia had been interrupted by colonial rule — the
British in Malaysia and Singapore, the Dutch in Indonesia,
and the Spanish and then the Americans in the Philippines.
Only Thailand escaped Western colonial rule (but not Western
pressure) by dint of astute Thai diplomacy and the unresolved
stalemate between the British and the French on mainland
Southeast Asia. Their different colonial legacies had drawn
curtains of ignorance and separation between the nations of
Southeast Asia, cut off thitherto flourishing contacts among their
peoples, and established new patterns of trade. Those legacies
brought forth a variety of national experiences and produced
upon independence a diversity of national institutions. They
also shaped divergent strategic outlooks. Malaysia and Singapore
had joined Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom
in the Five-Power Defence Arrangement. The Philippines was
formally allied with the United States. Thailand had a defence
commitment from the U.S. Indonesia remained non-aligned.
From colonial rule and the subsequent formation of
new states had emerged a number of territorial and other
political disputes among the maritime states of Southeast Asia
Beginnings and Expansion 5

— between Malaysia and Indonesia, between Malaysia and

Singapore, between Malaysia and the Philippines. Indonesia had
just abandoned its policy of “confrontation” against Malaysia
and Singapore. Malaysia and Singapore had undergone an
acrimonious separation. The Philippines continued to lay claim
to the North Borneo territory that had joined Malaysia as the
state of Sabah.
In the broader region of Southeast Asia, the Vietnam
conflict was raging, dragging in Cambodia and Laos, threatening
Thailand, and upsetting the stability of the region as a whole.
Feeling besieged by the Soviet Union in the north and the
United States in the south, China was explicitly hostile to the
Southeast Asian states, including post-Sukarno Indonesia, and
to the alliances that most of them had with the West. The
excesses of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China
had spilled over to its south, exacerbating the mutual hostility
between China and ASEAN’s founding nations, which, moreover,
felt threatened by communist insurgencies and subversion. The
Cold War was at peak intensity.
It was in these unpromising circumstances that ASEAN was
born. Paradoxically enough, it was also these circumstances
that impelled the founding states, in their wisdom, to establish
ASEAN. They did so in order to be able to manage their disputes
amicably and prevent them from developing into conflict. It
was to transcend their ethnic, cultural and religious differences
in the pursuit of their common interests. It was to bridge the
gaps of ignorance and alienation between them. It was to
dissipate the mutual suspicions among them. It was also to
keep Southeast Asia from being an arena for the quarrels of
the strong. At the same time, there was hope — vague at the
time — that regional cooperation, as well as regional stability,
would help in advancing national development.
6 ASEAN

ASEAN was to be the venue and process in which common

interests would be identified and pursued in cooperative ways.
One interest was in the peaceful management of disputes and
problems between Southeast Asian countries. This was to be
ensured by developing networks of leaders, ministers and officials
and a culture and habits of consultation and dialogue. Another
interest was in insulating the region, to the extent possible,
from the conflicts and tensions of the Cold War. At the same
time, ASEAN was to engage the major powers in benign and
constructive ways in the affairs of the region — first in its
economic development and, eventually, in consultations and
dialogue on regional security and stability. Another interest
was in healing the divisions of Southeast Asia when global
and regional conditions permitted it. Another was the mutual
reassurance that no member-state would interfere in another’s
domestic affairs, such as, for example, by exploiting ethnic,
racial and religious divisions and other problems within its
neighbours in order to advance its own national agenda.
Another would be in the cooperative development of the
regional economy. Underlying all this would be the cultivation
of national and personal stakes among the states and peoples
of Southeast Asia in regional cooperation and consensus.

THE FIRST SUMMIT

After nine years of feeling their way in regional cooperation
and building relationships, ASEAN’s founding states took a
major step forward by holding its first summit meeting in
Bali in February 1976. At that first summit, the ASEAN leaders
— Soeharto of Indonesia, Hussein Onn of Malaysia, Ferdinand
Marcos of the Philippines, Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, and
Kukrit Pramoj of Thailand — codified the regional norms for
Beginnings and Expansion 7

inter-state relations in the region. As laid down in the Treaty of

Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia, these norms were:

• Respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial

integrity and national identity of all nations;
• Freedom from external interference, subversion or coercion;
• Non-interference in the internal affairs of one another;
• The peaceful settlement of disputes;
• Renunciation of the threat or use of force; and
• Effective cooperation among themselves.

Fourteen nations outside ASEAN have subsequently acceded to

the treaty.
The summit also established a rudimentary central secre-
tariat and formalized the ministerial forum for economic co-
operation.

HEALING THE DIVIDE

From the beginning, ASEAN’s founding nations envisioned all
of Southeast Asia within the association, the region’s Cold-War
and Vietnam-War divisions healed. Accordingly, ASEAN reached
out to a unified Vietnam and a consolidated Laos after the
Indochina conflict had come to an end. However, this process
was interrupted when Vietnam invaded Cambodia and, at the
beginning of 1979, seized Phnom Penh. Although the purpose
of the action was to overthrow the genocidal Khmer Rouge
regime in Cambodia and to end its depredations against the
Vietnamese communities in the Vietnam-Cambodia border areas,
ASEAN resisted it, feeling threatened by a perceived Vietnamese
expansionism and concerned over the possible spread of Soviet
power, the Soviet Union being perceived as Vietnam’s principal
supporter.
8 ASEAN

Meanwhile, Brunei Darussalam had joined ASEAN on 7

January 1984, six days after achieving independent nationhood.
After the withdrawal of Vietnamese forces from Cambodia
in 1989, the 1991 Paris settlement of the Cambodian problem,
and the establishment of an elected Cambodian government in
1993, the way was clear for the membership of Vietnam, Laos
and Cambodia, as well as of Myanmar (as Burma had been
in the meantime renamed). The only conditions were that
the prospective members were to adhere to ASEAN’s “aims,
principles and purposes” and that they would accede to all
ASEAN agreements.
Thus, after a brief period as observer, Vietnam was admitted
into ASEAN on 28 July 1995. Laos and Myanmar followed on
23 July 1997. Cambodia was to have been admitted on the same
occasion. However, factional fighting within the Cambodian
government earlier in July delayed its ASEAN membership.
Following the agreed redistribution of political power in
Phnom Penh, Cambodia finally gained admission into ASEAN
on 30 April 1999. With that, all of Southeast Asia had come
into the ASEAN family, closing the divisions between ASEAN
and non-ASEAN and between maritime and mainland South-
east Asia.
This has since been regarded as a major contribution to
regional peace and stability. Regional peace and stability, the
calculation goes, would be better served by a Southeast Asia
together within ASEAN than by a region split into ASEAN and
non-ASEAN.
To be sure, the entry of four new members increased both
ASEAN’s political, economic, cultural and historical diversity
and the complexity of ASEAN’s decision-making processes.
Moreover, all four were making transitions, each in its own way,
from centrally planned to market economies and were suffering
Beginnings and Expansion 9

from shortages of human skills and institutional weaknesses.

Yet, this diversity and the new members’ needs had made it
all the more necessary to bring the entirety of Southeast Asia
into ASEAN, with all countries in Southeast Asia taking part
in the regional consensus, having a stake in regional peace,
stability and solidarity, and benefiting from regional economic
and social cooperation.