08/13/2019 Political Economies of Asia
Lecture Topic: The Importance of ASEAN
Class taken by Dr. Hank Lim Giok-Hay
Dr.Hank Lim Giok-Hay is Chairperson of the ERIA Academic Advisory Council (AAC) and the Research Director of Singapore Institute of International Affairs.
He always reiterates that we all live in Asia, the region that has very high potential to drive the economic growth. ASEAN is becoming more important because this region has the huge amount of population and big market. Some people said the progress of this organization is so slow but Dr.Hank? points out ASEAN is more diverse than other region in terms of religions, ethnics, and political regimes. Hence, it takes time to integrate together. Compared with East Asia, ASEAN has more collaboration because East Asian history relates with the World War II that caused distrust each other.
For the rise of China issue, ASEAN should balance with China by working with India and the US. He also reminds we cannot avoid China’s influence in this region but we need to have the organization like ASEAN to keep China and East Asian counterparts on the track that should be.
