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ASEAN at Forty: A Balance Sheet

In the year 2007, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) reached its fortieth year of existence. It had been founded on 8 August 1967 by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. As ASEAN evolved over those forty years, it was praised as the most successful among the world's regional associations of developing countries. Many countries and groups of countries, including the world's leading powers, sought increasingly closer links with it. At the same time, ASEAN was criticized, even vilified, for not living up to its promise and potential ? at least, the promise and potential as the critics saw them. As is true of many things in human affairs, the truth lies somewhere in the middle of these two views. The beginning of the association's fifth decade is as good a time as any for locating where in the objective middle the truth about ASEAN is.