Tan Jee Say - ASEAN has not lived up to its promise

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An honorable member of the Coffee Shop Has Just Posted the Following:

Tan Jee Say wrote :

To most outsiders, ASEAN has not lived up to its promise. With the third largest labour force in the world after China and India that has a combined population of about 600 million, majority of whom are young, why has it not delivered on its potential? As an organisation, it does not have much force and will not move beyond what individual countries want it to. Each country has its own agenda and there is no ASEAN identity to speak of. Even in the area of security for which ASEAN was set up in 1968 as a bulwark against communist expansion beyond Indo-China, Prof Ken Jimbo from Keio University doubted it would ever develop into a solid organisation like NATO; in a telling way, he observed that Japan prefers to deal bilaterally with the Philippines and Vietnam over the South China Sea, and will develop its strategy towards Southeast Asia based on its bilateral experiences.

The only speaker on the panel who believes in ASEAN was the Thai Ambassador to the US. His Excellency (HE) Vijavat Isarabhakdi said there was a strong ASEAN identity among government officials but acknowledged the need to develop this identity among ordinary people. He thought ASEAN has made real progress even if it is slow but he was sure that we can expect more tangible results after the 2015 integration.

The ASEAN potential in SingFirst’s plan

I can see the potential of ASEAN as a major facilitator of Singapore’s future economic growth. After 50 years of high dependence on multinational corporations and foreign labour, we at SingFirst believe that it is time that we “grow our own timber” by developing our own talent pool of local entrepreneurs, managers, professionals, engineers, technical specialists and skilled workers.

See full article at:
http://singfirst.org/2014/12/29/time...-the-backyard/


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