INTRODUCTION ASEAN ASEAN Motto
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INTRODUCTION ASEAN On 8 August 1967, five leaders - the Foreign Ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand - sat down together in the main hall of the Department of Foreign Affairs building in Bangkok, Thailand and signed a document. By virtue of that document, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) was born. The five Foreign Ministers who signed it - Adam Malik of Indonesia, Narciso R. Ramos of the Philippines, Tun Abdul Razak of Malaysia, S. Rajaratnam of Singapore, and Thanat Khoman of Thailand - would subsequently be hailed as the Founding Fathers of probably the most successful inter-governmental organization in the developing world today. And the document that they signed would be known as the ASEAN Declaration. Brunei Darussalam then joined on 7 January 1984, Viet Nam on 28 July 1995, Lao PDR and Myanmar on 23 July 1997, and Cambodia on 30 April 1999, making up what is today the ten Member States of ASEAN. The original ASEAN logo presented five brown sheaves of rice stalks, one for each founding member. Beneath the sheaves is the legend "ASEAN" in blue. These are set on a field of yeyellow encircleled by a blue border. BrBrown stands for strstrength and stability, yeyellow for prosperity and blue for the spirit of cordiality in which ASEAN affairs are conducted. When ASEAN celebrated its 30th Anniversary in 1997, the sheaves on the logo had increased to ten - representing all ten countries of Southeast Asia and reflecting the colours of the flags of all of them. In a very real sense, ASEAN and Southeast Asia would then be one and the same, just as the Founding Fathers had envisioned. ASEAN Motto - The motto of ASEAN is “One Vision, One Identity, One Community”. 11 ASEAN Day -- 8 August is observed as ASEAN Day. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 1.1. Mutual respect for the independence, sovereignty, eqequality, territritorial integrity, and national identity of all nations; 2.2. The right of every State to lead its national existence free from external interference,, subversion or coercion; 3.3. Non-interference in the internal affairs of one another;r; 4.4. Settlement of differences or disputes by peaceful manner; 5.5. Renunciation of the threat or use of force; 6.6. Effective cooperation among themselves. AIMS AND PURPOSES 1.1. To accelerate the ececonomimic growtwth, social progreress and cultural dedevelopment in the region through joint endeavours in the spirit of equality and partnership in order to strengthen the foundation for a prosperous and peaceful community of Southeast Asian Nations; 2.2. To promote regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law in the relationship among countries of the region and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter; 3.3. To promote active collaboration and mutual assistance on matters of common interestt in the economic, social, cultural, technical, scientific and administrative fields; 22 ASEAN Day -- 8 August is observed as ASEAN Day. FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 1.1. Mutual respect for the independence, sovereignty, eqequality, territritorial integrity, and national identity of all nations; 2.2. The right of every State to lead its national existence free from external interference,, subversion or coercion; 3.3. Non-interference in the internal affairs of one another;r; 4.4. Settlement of differences or disputes by peaceful manner; 5.5. Renunciation of the threat or use of force; 6.6. Effective cooperation among themselves. AIMS AND PURPOSES 1.1. To accelerate the ececonomimic growtwth, social progreress and cultural dedevelopment in the region through joint endeavours in the spirit of equality and partnership in order to strengthen the foundation for a prosperous and peaceful community of Southeast Asian Nations; 2.2. To promote regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of law in the relationship among countries of the region and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter; 3.3. To promote active collaboration and mutual assistance on matters of common interestt in the economic, social, cultural, technical, scientific and administrative fields; 22 4.4. To provide assistance to each other in the form of training and research facilities in the educational, professional, technical and administrative spheres; 5.5. To collaborate more effecectivelely for the grgreater utilislisatiation of their agagriculture and industries, the exexpansion of their trade, including the study of the problems of ininteternrnatatioionanal cocommododitity trtradade, ththe imprprovovemenent of ththeieir trtrananspsporortatatition anandd communications facilities and the raising of the living standards of their peoples; 6.6. To promote Southeast Asian studies; 7.7. To maintain close and beneficial cooperation with existing international and regionalal organisations with similar aims and purposes, and explore all avenues for even closer cooperation among themselves. 33 Environment and Democracy At the turn of the 21st century, issues shifted to involve a more environmental perspective. The organisation started to discuss environmental agreements. These included the signing of the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution in 2002 as an attempt to control haze pollution in Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, this was unsuccessful due to the outbreaks of the 2005 Malaysian haze and the 2006 Southeast Asian haze. Other environmental treaties introduced by the organisation include the Cebu Declaration on East Asian Energy Security the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network in 2005, and the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, both of which are responses to the potential effects of climate change. Climate change is of current interest. Through the Bali Concord II in 2003, ASEAN has subscribed to the notion of democratic peace, which means all member countries believe democratic processes will promote regional peace and stability. Also, the non-democratic members all agreed that it was something all member states should aspire to. The leaders of each country, particularly Mahathir Mohammad of Malaysia, also felt the need to further integrate the region. Beginning in 1997, the bloc began creating organisations within its framework with the intention of achieving this goal. ASEAN plus Three was the first of these and was created to improve existing ties with the People's Republic of China, Japan, and South Korea. This was followed by the even larger East Asia Summit, which included these countries as well as India, Australia, and New Zealand. This new grouping acted as a prerequisite for the planned East Asia Community, which was supposedly patterned after the now-defunct European Community. The ASEAN Eminent Persons Group was created to study the possible successes and failures of this policy as well as the possibility of drafting an ASEAN Charter. 4 In 2006, ASEAN was given observer status at the United Nations General Assembly. As a response, the organisation awarded the status of "dialogue partner" to the United Nations. Furthermore, on 23 July that year, José Ramos-Horta, then Prime Minister of East Timor, signed a formal request for membership and expected the accession process to last at least five years before the then-observer state became a full member. In 2007, ASEAN celebrated its 40th anniversary since its inception, and 30 years of diplomatic relations with the United States. On 26 August 2007, ASEAN stated that it aims to complete all its free trade agreements with China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand by 2013, in line with the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community by 2015. In November 2007 the ASEAN members signed the ASEAN Charter, a constitution governing relations among the ASEAN members and establishing ASEAN itself as an international legal entity. During the same year, the Cebu Declaration on East Asian Energy Security was signed in Cebu on 15 January 2007, by ASEAN and the other members of the EAS (Australia, People's Republic of China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea), which promotes energy security by finding energy alternatives to conventional fuels. On 27 February 2009 a Free Trade Agreement with the ASEAN regional block of 10 countries and New Zealand and its close partner Australia was signed, it is estimated that this FTA would boost aggregate GDP across the 12 countries by more than US$48 billion over the period 2000–2020. 5 Decolonisation and Critical Reception In the 1960s, the push for decolonisation promoted the independence and establishment of sovereign nations such as Indonesia and Malaysia. Since the beginning phases of these nations, efforts were made to implement independent policies with a unifying focus of refrain from interference in regional domestic affairs. There was a move to unify the region under what was called the ‘ASEAN Way’ based on the ideals of non-interference, informality, minimal institutionalisation, consultation and consensus, non-use of force and non-confrontation. ASEAN members (especially Singapore) approved of the term ‘ASEAN Way’to describe a regional method of multilaterism. Thus the signing of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia adopted fundamental principle: • Mutual respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity, and national identity of all nations • The right of every State to lead its national existence free from external interference, subversion or coercion • Non-interference in internal affairs • Settlement