Global Governance and Regionalist Solutions

Abstract

The penetration of economic issues into ASEAN cooperation illustrates well changes in the international system since the establishment of the organization. The point of departure in establishing ASEAN was intergovernmental cooperation in regional relations as well as dealing with other international issues which were important to regional security. The Cold War context limited cooperation to the capitalist Southeast Asian countries which were politically closely linked to the Western security system. The dramatic effects of the destruction of the Cold War two-bloc system was expressed in Lee Kuan Yew’s statement on the need to find new uniting factors in the organization and that one important factor would be competition in the world’s economic regimes.¹