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1 1 (February 10, 2020)

handle is hein.crs/govcaau0001 and id is 1 raw text is: FF. ' ,iE SE .r. i , Updated February 10, 2020 The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is Southeast Asia's primary multilateral organization, a 10- member grouping of nations with a combined population of 630 million and a combined annual gross domestic product (GDP) of around $2.4 trillion. Established in 1967, it has grown into one of the world's largest regional fora, representing a strategically important region with some of the world's busiest sea lanes, including the Straits of Malacca and the South China Sea. Taken collectively, ASEAN would rank as the world's fifth-largest economy and the United States' fourth-largest export market. ASEAN's members are Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Members rotate as chair: Vietnam is ASEAN's chair for 2020 and Brunei is to assume the chair in 2021. ASEAN engages in a wide range of diplomatic, economic and security discussions through hundreds of annual meetings and through a secretariat based in Jakarta, Indonesia. In 2008, the United States became the first non-ASEAN nation to appoint a representative to ASEAN, and in 2011 opened a U.S. mission to ASEAN in Jakarta with a resident Ambassador. Several other nations have followed suit. ASEAN is a diverse and informal organization, operating on principles including consensus and noninterference in the internal affairs of its members. Some observers argue that this style constrains ASEAN from acting strongly and cohesively on important issues. Others argue that these principles dubbed the ASEAN Way ensure that the group's diverse members continue to discuss issues where their interests sometimes diverge. ASEAN includes nations across the economic development spectrum, and its political systems include democracies, semi-authoritarian states, and repressive military regimes. Asia has no dominant EU-style multilateral body, and many see the region's economic and security architectures as underdeveloped. ASEAN convenes and administratively supports a number of regional forums that include other regional governments (known as dialogue partners), including the United States. Member governments deeply value what they call ASEAN Centrality in the evolving regional architecture. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), established in 1994 with 26 Asian and Pacific states plus the EU, was formed to facilitate dialogue on political and security matters. The East Asia Summit (EAS), created in 2005, is an evolving institution with a varied agenda, in which the United States gained membership in 2010. The EAS includes ASEAN members, Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, and the United States. The ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting-Plus (ADMM+) was established in 2010, bringing senior defense officials from EAS members together regularly and hosting multilateral military exchanges. Source: Graphic created by CRS. The United States has long had strong bilateral relations with individual Southeast Asian nations, including treaty alliances with the Philippines and Thailand and a close security partnership with Singapore. Some U.S. officials have spoken of a need to strengthen ties with the region's multilateral institutions as well. The United States initially supported ASEAN as a means to promote regional dialogue and as a bulwark against Communism in Asia, becoming an ASEAN Dialogue Partner in 1977. In 2009, the United States acceded to the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and committed to an annual U.S. -ASEAN Meeting. In 2012, it raised the level of the U.S. -ASEAN meeting to a Leaders Meeting, and in November 2015, it announced the creation of a U.S.-ASEAN Strategic Partnership. Successive U.S. Administrations have identified deep U.S. interests in Southeast Asia, including fostering democracy and human rights, encouraging liberal trade and investment regimes, addressing maritime security and tensions in the South China Sea, promoting environmental protection, countering terrorism, and combatting human trafficking and trafficking in narcotics and wildlife. Increasingly, observers see the region as an area of strategic and economic competition between the United States and China. The Trump Administration has cast its regional strategy as the promotion of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific, a formulation that raises some concern for some ASEAN members, who see the group itself as a central hub for regional diplomacy. Administration officials have sought to reassure ASEAN of its importance. ASEAN is literally at the center of the Indo-Pacific, Secretary of State Mike of 5outheast A -K gognpq goo , q g a X

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