ASEAN issues declaration on integration

Besides Najib, the documents were inked by Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong of Laos, Myanmar President U Thein Sein, Philippine President Benigno S. Aquino, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung of Vietnam.

ASEAN leaders signed declaration on AEC, which was first envisaged in 2002.

Meanwhile Wathshlah Naidu of Women’s Aid Organisation Malaysia (WAO) said the human rights agenda of Asean in the Asean Community Vision 2025 was “rather fragmented and established in silos”.

Acknowledging this reality, member states also inked the Kuala Lumpur Declaration on ASEAN 2025 charting the way forward for the community for the next ten years. He said this reflected a long standing national consensus in India on the importance of this region for India and the world.

But analysts say much work remains for the most important pillar – the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) – to achieve its primary goal of allowing freer movement of skilled workers, trade and capital for the region’s more than 600 million people – more populous than North America or the European Union.

Compared to the European Union, the AEC is culturally and politically more diverse with various systems of government including communism (Laos and Vietnam), a military junta (Thailand), authoritarian (Cambodia), quasi-civilian (Myanmar) and a monarchy (Brunei).

In the ASEAN-China Summit, Li delivered a 6-pronged proposal on ASEAN-China cooperation, focusing largely on trade.

The economic community also vowed that the region will “remain free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, as well as contribute to global efforts on disarmament, non-proliferation and peaceful uses of nuclear energy”. His trip also took him to the Philippines and Turkey, where he met with Putin on the sidelines of an worldwide summit. “Even those with whom we had to plead with in the past, now readily affirm there is truly a need for a binding Code of Conduct [in the South China Sea].”.

The rationale of a single market and deeper economic integration is that foreign investors will have advantages in establishing regional production networks in Asean countries only if the region has become a reliable part of the global supply chain.

“Five, development cooperation (is) at the heart of the East Asia Summit”.

Modi reaffirmed India’s active participation in the ASEAN led security dialogue and cooperation forums and said the East Asia Summit must continue to support the evolution of an inclusive, balanced, transparent and open regional architecture for security and cooperation.

The RCEP negotiations involved the 10 ASEAN member states plus Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand and began in November 2012 with an earlier expectation of conclusion by year-end.