The ASEAN Economic Community: From 2015 Lessons to Today's Reality and Vision 2045
ASEAN leadership has subtly shifted the narrative from rigid deadlines to broader strategic horizons: pivoting from the post-2015 roadmap to Vision 2025, and now Vision 2045 (Revised and Updated Edition) When the ASEAN Community and the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) were launched at the close of 2015, the milestone was heralded as a watershed national priority across member states—nowhere more so than in Thailand, where ministries, boardrooms, and lecture halls rallied behind the ambitious blueprint. Yet looking back nearly a decade later—as the AEC Blueprint 2025 reaches its terminus and the ASEAN Community Vision 2045 was officially adopted at the 46th ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur under Malaysia’s chairmanship—a stark reality emerges: deep structural economic disparities and wildly uneven readiness have kept the AEC from delivering the seamless integration it originally promised. Meanwhile, the geopolitical ground beneath ASEAN’s feet has shifted dramatically. Escalating ...