Critically analyze the role of ASEAN in the promotion of regional peace and security through economic cooperation and trade. (2020, 15 Marks)
The commercial liberal claim is that trade makes war costly. Richard Rosecrance‘s “trading state” (The Rise of the Trading State, 1986) prefers markets to conquest, and Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye‘s complex interdependence (Power and Interdependence, 1977) makes force a poor tool among partners. ASEAN is often cited as the Asian proof; the record shows that economic cooperation helped keep the peace but was not what created it.
The case for the economic route
- Building blocks. AFTA (1992) and the ATIGA (2010) have removed tariffs on almost all intra-ASEAN goods trade. The AEC (2015) added investment, services and trade facilitation, and talks on a Digital Economy Framework Agreement concluded in mid-2026.
- Growth as security. Export-led growth reduced poverty and weakened the insurgencies that most threatened the founding states; FDI reached $226 billion in 2024.
- Functionalist trust. Following David Mitrany, dense technical cooperation builds habits of trust, and shared investments give each state a stake in its neighbours’ stability.
- Binding the great powers, the strongest evidence. China’s 2002 FTA offer, with its “early harvest”, aimed to reassure the region. The ASEAN+1 network, RCEP (in force 2022) and the Chiang Mai swap network of ASEAN Plus Three tie China, Japan and Korea into ASEAN-chaired rules. The ACFTA 3.0 upgrade of October 2025 continued that logic.
Critique
- Sequence. The peace came before the trade. Intra-ASEAN disputes were contained from 1967, while AFTA arrived only in 1992. Amitav Acharya credits the norms of the ASEAN Way for that peace; Michael Leifer credits the external balance of power.
- Thin internal interdependence. Intra-ASEAN trade is only about 21–22 per cent of the total. Members export competing goods outside, so the dependence that matters is on China, the United States and Japan.
- No neofunctionalist spill-over. Ernst B. Haas expected economic integration to spill over into political integration. ASEAN never built a customs union, a court or majority voting; the AEC stayed intergovernmental.
- Interdependence as a lever for others. Cambodia’s reliance on China led it to block the 2012 joint communiqué on the South China Sea. In 2025 each member negotiated separately on US tariffs.
- Interdependence did not stop war. Thailand and Cambodia fought a border war in 2025 despite three decades of free trade. American trade pressure, not ASEAN’s machinery, did most to end it.
- Dependency view. Regional production chains are controlled from outside the region, limiting the autonomy a security community needs.
India’s angle
India’s Act East treats trade and connectivity as strategy, with limits. India left RCEP in 2019 over its China deficit, and the AITIGA review was still unfinished in September 2026, though two-way trade reached $114 billion in 2025. Its partnership with ASEAN rests more on maritime security and support for ASEAN centrality than on trade.
Conclusion
Economic cooperation has been a supporting pillar of ASEAN’s peace, not its foundation. Its greatest security value lies outside the region: tying the great powers into ASEAN-led economic rules. Inside the region, peace still depends on political norms and a favourable balance of power.