- ASEAN stands for Association of South East Asian Nations
- It is a political and economic organisation of 10 SE Asian nations
- Formed in 1967
- Founding members were Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand i.e. all 10 current members were not founding members
- Current members are:
- Indonesia
- Malaysia
- Philippines
- Singapore
- Thailand
- Brunei
- Cambodia
- Laos
- Myanmar (Burma)
- Vietnam
- Aims:
- Accelerating economic growth, social progress, and sociocultural evolution among its members,
- Protection of regional stability
- Providing a mechanism for member countries to resolve differences peacefully
- ‘The ASEAN Way’: Doctrine that the member countries will largely mind their own business when it comes to internal matters of member countries
- ASEAN Plus Three: Was created to improve existing ties with the China, Japan and South Korea.
- If the ASEAN nations were a single country, their combined economy would rank the 7th largest in the world
- HQ : Jakarta, Indonesia
- India
- Has and FTA with ASEAN (operational since 2010)
- Shares border both land/marine
- Large number of Indian origin people living in these countries