What Unites These Nations?
ASEAN says it wants to become a more robust organization with more “teeth.” Think they can do it? Maybe this is a clue:
The 10 leaders, whose members range from an absolute monarchy and military juntas to parliamentary democracies and one-party communist states, have agreed to start drafting a charter that would give ASEAN a legal basis for the first time since it was founded at the height of the Vietnam war nearly 40 years ago.
I wonder what unites those nations, beyond economic interests. Economic associations are perfectly fine things, but taking the next step would seem to require a most unlikely agreement on whom to bite.
What these folks have in common is that they’re all in the same geographical area, and they look vaguely Oriental. That’s it.