ASEAN Vision 2040: Towards a Bolder and Stronger ASEAN Community Volume 1

Abstract

The original ASEAN Vision 2020 and the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 were founded on the economic and diplomatic successes of ASEAN and the subsequent ASEAN Community. The original Vison 2020 became a testament of ASEAN Leaders’ determination to move boldly forward despite the challenges ASEAN faced during the Asian financial crisis when it was commissioned. To a large extent it shaped the key initiatives that gave rise to the ASEAN Community blueprints. The ASEAN Community Vision 2025, the first after the establishment of the ASEAN Community in 2015, embodies the Leaders’ commitment to build a cohesive, competitive, resilient, and sustainable ASEAN community for the ASEAN peoples. The optimism that underpins the Community Vision 2025 reflects the mood of a robustly growing, expanding, and rising ASEAN region. Vision 2040 also rests on the foundation of ASEAN success, with ASEAN acknowledged as the hub of economic and political-security architecture in the Asian region. Virtually all the member states of ASEAN have been growth outperformers globally. But ASEAN 2040 is being conceived in a period of great uncertainty. That uncertainty is a consequence of a huge shift in the regional and global geo-economic and geo-political landscape and the revolution in digital technology, including the emerging Fourth Industrial Revolution, and its potential impact on the economy and society. ASEAN Vision 2040 seeks to assess the challenges that ASEAN faces now and sets out a vision for the next 2 decades and the strategies to achieve it. At base, in light of the new deeply uncertain environment the region faces, ASEAN Vision 2040 calls for ASEAN to step boldly forward and be more pro-active, nimble, forward looking, united, and more deeply focused on people empowerment and engagement.