An overview of the approaching AEC

[Pattaya One]

The vision: A region occupied by about 600 million people, currently divided into 10 independent nations, prepared to pitch its US$2 trillion-plus economy into a unified front to take on the other major economies and economic unions of the world.
That’s the basic premise behind the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) which is set to become a reality, barring unforseen circumstances, at the start of 2015, less than two and a half years hence.
Olarn Chaipravat, Thailand’s trade representative stated “When the AEC opens there will be no individual country in ASEAN but 10 provinces.”
As with its counterpart, the European Economic Community (EEC), the AEC is designed to remove regional trade barriers to ensure the smooth and unfettered flow of capital, goods, services, and labour between the disparate members.
In theory, economic considerations and the profit motive should override the disparate political, ethnic, religious, and geographical differences between the 10 AEC members.
Thailand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, and Indonesia are all, ostensibly, democracies; Myanmar has embraced a modified but tentative style of democratic government; Brunei is a monarchy; Vietnam and Laos are socialist, one-party regimes.
Thankfully, the ASEAN members have experience of regular interaction by way of the sporting field. The Southeast Asian (SEA) Games and the wider Asian Games have been a feature of the regional landscape since 1950 (Asian Games) and 1959 (SEA Games).
In spite of wars and other regional conflicts, in most cases the aforementioned games went ahead in a spirit of cooperation and unity, proving resilient enough to overcome the more political and military problems of the times.
A glitch occurred just recently at the end of the ASEAN foreign ministers conference in Phnom Penh when, for the first time in its 45-year history, the member states could not agree on the wording of the traditional end of meeting joint communique.
The sticking point was between Vietnam and the Philippines over serious maritime border issues in the South China Sea. Both these countries and, to a lesser extent, Malaysia have unresolved arguments regarding the precise demarcation of their maritime borders. The issue also extends to major regional neighbours China and Japan.
Whether the maritime border issue will be allowed to mar or even derail the introduction and full implementation of the AEC come 1 January 2015 is something almost no one can predict.
In all probability the maritime dispute will not be permitted to interfere with the start of the AEC. Pragmatism is often cited as a particularly Asian trait, and there’s almost no doubt the political leaders of all ASEAN are far too pragmatic to allow the AEC to be delayed or subsumed.

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