Asia’s importance in the world economy is large and growing; the continent already accounts for one third of global GDP, according to the World Bank. While the giant economies of China and India get the most attention, the countries of Southeast Asia are contributing to that growth as well. PwC’s Long View forecast sees Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia moving into the world’s 25 biggest economies, with Indonesia rising to number four globally, by 2050.
Those countries, plus Brunei, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Singapore, are part of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), which gives them collective economic and political heft. The Council on Foreign Relations describes ASEAN as the most developed example of regional integration outside of the EU. (That isn’t to say the two unions are easily comparable. EU members share sovereignty through a strong, legally-based, central institution, while ASEAN is a consensus-based intergovernmental agency with no element of sovereignty sharing.)...
from Yale Insights
Curtis S. Chin served as U.S. Ambassador to the Asian Development Bank under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He currently serves at the Milken Institute as Asia fellow and is a managing director at the advisory firm RiverPeak Group LLC.
