The ASEAN Economic Community: An Economic and Strategic Project

Abstract

As we begin 2015, attention turns to the ten Southeast Asian nations and their concrete ‘deliverable’ of an ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) on 31 December. Understandably, questions have been raised as to whether the AEC can be successfully achieved. This paper tries to provide an answer to this by arguing that one should not judge the AEC solely by its economic outcomes and the issue of whether the AEC can be attained in its entirety by the deadline. Rather, one should also evaluate the AEC against its ability to serve the region’s strategic goals of economic coherence in dealing with the international community as well as maintaining ASEAN centrality.