INTRODUCTION

As noted in the previous chapter, the economic crisis of 1997 became a watershed for ASEAN, particularly in the way it had to respond to regional problems brought on by the crisis. There is however a paradox to the crisis. While the attendant challenges stemming from the crisis should have resulted in a less cohesive association, as members were expected to turn inward to attend to domestic problems, the crisis however became a rallying point for ASEAN to become more responsive and bolder in instituting mechanisms to handle regional problems. We noted that it was in December 1997, just a few months after the onset of the financial crisis, when ASEAN leaders unveiled the ASEAN Vision 2020 at the ASEAN Second Informal Summit in Kuala Lumpur. The ASEAN Vision 2020 articulated the leaders' vision of an “ASEAN as a concert of Southeast Asian nations, outward looking, living in peace, stability and prosperity, bonded together in partnership in dynamic development and in a community of caring societies”.

A closer look at the preamble of the ASEAN Vision 2020 would reveal that the Vision had essentially set out the three-part agenda of ASEAN in the new millennium. These were: political and security cooperation, economic co-operation, and building a community of caring society. This agenda was reaffirmed and rearticulated at the Ninth ASEAN Summit in October 2003 when the ASEAN leaders adopted the ASEAN Concord II (also referred to as Bali Concord II) that declared the establishment of an ASEAN Community comprising three pillars, which are essentially the same as three areas of co-operation identified in the Vision 2020.