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1 1 (January 16, 2018)

handle is hein.crs/goveazm0001 and id is 1 raw text is: Congressional Research Service Inforrning the legislative debate since 1914 Updated January 16, 2018 The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Overview 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. 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. The group's members rotate as chairs: Singapore is ASEAN's chair for 2018 and Thailand will assume the chair in 2019. Many observers see ASEAN as an evolving hub of multilateral diplomacy in East Asia. In recent years, ASEAN has been a center of discussions on numerous regional issues, including South China Sea tensions, cross- border environmental problems, and regional economic development and trade liberalization. As China has deepened its economic and cultural ties in Southeast Asia, some analysts believe the region also has become an area of great power rivalry. Other powers also have shown renewed or greater interest in the region, including the United States, Japan, India, Russia, and the European Union (EU). ASEAN is an informal organization, operating on principles including consensus and non-interference in the internal affairs of 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 are sometimes divergent. ASEAN includes nations across the economic-development spectrum, and its political systems include democracies, semi-authoritarian states, and repressive military regimes. U.S.-ASEAN Relations U.S. engagement with ASEAN has expanded steadily since the organization's creation, particularly during the Obama Administration. The United States initially supported ASEAN as a means to promote regional dialogue and as a bulwark against Communism in Asia. The United States became an ASEAN Dialogue Partner in 1977. In 2008 the United States became the first non-ASEAN nation to appoint a representative to the ASEAN Secretariat. In 2009, the United States acceded to the ASEAN Treaty of Amity and Cooperation and committed to an annual U.S.-ASEAN Leaders' Meeting. In 2012, it raised the level of the annual meeting to a U.S.-ASEAN Summit, and in November 2015 it announced the creation of a U.S.-ASEAN Strategic Partnership. The United States has long stated that it has deep interests in Southeast Asia, including fostering democracy and human rights, encouraging liberal trade and investment regimes, addressing maritime security and rising tensions in the South China Sea, promoting environmental protection, countering terrorist threats, and combatting human trafficking and illegal trafficking in narcotics and wildlife. Observers in the region have largely welcomed U.S. initiatives that work through ASEAN. Some Southeast Asian observers have expressed concern about proposed U.S. funding cuts for ASEAN-centered programs in FY2018, and what they see as the Trump Administration's lack of new initiatives towards their own region. Although President Trump attended the U.S.-ASEAN Summit in Manila in November 2017, he did not attend the subsequent East Asia Summit (EAS). U.S. trade and economic arrangements centered on ASEAN have been limited by the vast diversity of the group's economic development. Per capita incomes among ASEAN members range from $56,084 in Singapore to $1,144 in Cambodia. The United States does not have a Free Trade Agreement with ASEAN itself, though it does engage in dialogue on economic initiatives through a Trade and Investment Framework agreement (TIFA) signed in 2006. The United States has launched a series of initiatives with ASEAN and with other Southeast Asian regional institutions. U.S.-ASEAN Connect was created in 2016 as an effort to coordinate U.S. public- and private-sector economic initiatives in the region through the U.S. Mission to ASEAN and the U.S. Embassies in Bangkok and Singapore. U.S.-ASEAN Connect is intended to coordinate projects managed by the Departments of State and Commerce, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Trade and Development Agency, and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. Among other U.S. initiatives targeted at ASEAN are an expanded Fulbright Exchange of ASEAN-U.S. Scholars, aid for ASEAN's formation of a Single Customs Window to facilitate easier trade of goods and services, the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) which offers scholarships and opportunities for young leaders in the region, and assistance to the ASEAN Volunteers Program, an ASEAN-based program modeled after the Peace Corps. https://crsreports.cong

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