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1 1 (July 26, 2022)

handle is hein.crs/goveikl0001 and id is 1 raw text is: CongressionaI Resear h Service infmrrning the Ieg~Ilative debate since 1914 Updated July 26, 2022 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 660 million and a combined annual gross domestic product (GDP) of around $3.1 trillion in 2021. Established in 1967, it has grown into one of the world's largest regional fora, representing a strategically important region straddling 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: Cambodia is ASEAN's chair for 2022 and Indonesia is to assume the chair in 2023. 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 it opened a U.S. mission to ASEAN in Jakarta with a resident ambassador. Several other nations have followed suit. President Biden held a summit with ASEAN's leaders on May 12-13 in Washington, DC. (Burma's junta leader and outgoing Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte did not attend.) ASEAN leaders also met with a bipartisan group of Members including House Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leader Hoyer, and Minority Leader McCarthy. ASEAN is a diverse and informal organization. Two of its core operating principles are consensual decisionmaking 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-promote regional stability and ensure that the group's members continue to discuss issues where their interests sometimes diverge. The principle has been tested as ASEAN seeks to address the crisis that has followed the Burmese military's 2021 coup d'etat. ASEAN and Asian Regiona Architecture Asia has no dominant EU-style multilateral body, and many observers see the region's economic and security institutions as underdeveloped. ASEAN convenes and administratively supports a number of regional fora that include other governments (known as dialogue partners), including the United States. ASEAN Member governments deeply value what they call ASEAN Centrality in the evolving regional architecture. The ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), first convened 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, leaders-level forum with a varied agenda, in which the United States gained membership in 2010. The EAS includes all 10 ASEAN members, plus Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea, and the United States. The ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting-Plus (ADMM+), established in 2010, brings senior defense officials from EAS members together regularly and hosts multilateral military exchanges. In recent years, as cooperation through non-ASEAN regional groupings such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and the Australia-UK-U.S. (AUKUS) security grouping has deepened, some Southeast Asian observers have expressed concern about ASEAN's place in U.S. strategy. The Biden Administration casts its May 2022 summit with ASEAN leaders as a tangible demonstration of U.S. commitment to the organization. qAssociation Asian Nations MBODIA ~ r - HLIPIE f, RU Nf a fC Source: Graphic created by CRS. U.S.-ASEAN R.ations 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. Many U.S. policymakers see engagement with ASEAN as complementing bilateral relationships and strengthening the region's collective diplomatic weight as other regional players gain in economic and military power. The United States initially supported ASEAN as a means to promote regional dialogue and as a bulwark against Communism, 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, the United States and ASEAN agreed to raise the level of the U.S.-ASEAN meeting to a Leaders Meeting, and in November 2015 announced a U.S.-ASEAN Strategic Partnership.

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