ASEAN’s newer members coming to grips with multilateralism

When discussing Laos’ upcoming ASEAN membership with a senior government official in 1995, he insisted the reason his country wanted to join the regional organisation was because Vietnam had just done so. The response revealed two things. First, Laos, like its neighbouring ASEAN aspirants at the time — Cambodia and Myanmar — did not want to be left behind, and wanted out of the economic wilderness by joining ‘the club’. Second, there was very little appreciation of what membership would entail, let alone what it could evolve into.