Geography And World Commerc3

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, was created in Bangkok, Thailand on August 8, 1967 for primarily two different reasons. The first reason was to handle the perceived military threat of Vietnam and the second reason was to get a handle on the ordeal between Indonesia and Malaysia that concluded with the overthrow of Indonesia’s President Sukarno both reasons sparked the induction of the ASEAN. The ASEAN was implemented to combat the likelihood of communism and foreign aggression but never formed a stable regional military alliance. The region of ASEAN is very diverse. Five of the original members consisted of Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Brunei Darussalam, Vietnam, Lao PDR and Myanmar and Cambodia later joined. As of 2006, the ASEAN region had a population of about 560 million, a combined gross domestic product of almost US$ 1,100 billion, and a total trade of about US$ 1,400 billion (asean.org). The purposes of the ASEAN group are to accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region and promote regional peace and stability based on the principles of the United Nations Charter.

A major principle of the ASEAN group is the non-intervention in the affairs of each member. Each member can make decisions as long as it does not affect other members of the group. This one principle is a distinguishing character from other regional economy groups. Another distinguishing characteristic of the ASEAN group is the reduced attention of the protection of human rights. With this in mind, the ASEAN leaders are currently drafting a charter about human rights to avoid non-governmental organizations the ability to scrutinize their documents. At the same time, ASEAN believes that economic and social rights trump civil and political rights. For the 30years, members of the ASEAN showed considerable economic growth. For example, Singapore has controversial human rights policies but this country did reduce poverty without the help of a huge economic boost, its natural resources. ASEAN cannot take full responsibility for the economic growth; it was mainly due to the similar policies of the members of ASEAN. With this economic growth tragedy struck in July 1997 when the foreign exchange against the Thai bath rippled through Asia with Thailand, Indonesia and Philippines