As the much-touted "Pacific Century" approaches, the miracle of economic development around the Asian Rim continues a pace with few signs of abatement.
Prime spokes of the Pacific hub are the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members. Brunei and Singapore have the most robust economies. The remaining four members are, in order of 1987 per capita income, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, and Indonesia, at: $1,800; $850; $590; and $450, averaging out to $925.
Note that Singapore is the only ASEAN member that is an Asian Tiger. Because of its growing economy, like Singapore, Brunei is also, to its distress, ineligible for American trade preferences. Brunei's $15,390 per capita income exceeds the $8,500 limit for GSP preferential treatment. Brunei, however, a tiny sultanate ruled by the world's richest man, is absolutely sui generis and cannot be addressed in any general discussion of either economic dynamics or ASEAN, to which it became the sixth and last member in 1984 [see,"Brunei's Abundant Fortunes"].
While the six ASEAN nations occupy a total land area less than a third of that of the United States, the ASEAN population of 321.2 million exceeds both that of the United States (247 million) and of the European Community with which it expects to be in direct economic competition after 1992.
ASEAN was established in August 1967 primarily as a regional instrument of economic, social, and cultural cooperation to enhance cohesion, self-reliance, and "resilience" (an ASEAN signatory term). Because of competitive aspects of the economies and the lack of complimentary goals, ASEAN was, as noted, accorded short-shift, even by some of its members.
With some jump-starts, however, provided by significant economic spin-offs from the Vietnam War, (both Thailand and the Philippines contributed troops in support of Saigon) and foreign assistance (after World War II, U.S. bilateral economic assistance to ASEAN countries through 1987 totaled $8.6 billion), ASEAN forged ahead. It is now described by official U.S. publications as " a dynamic group of developing countries with some of the highest growth rates in the world."
Collectively, ASEAN constitutes the United States' seventh-largest trading partner. In 1987 total U.S.-ASEAN trade was about $27 billion. A generally favorable investment climate has stimulated a doubling of American direct investment in ASEAN from 1982 to the present.
America's principal exports to ASEAN are capital goods, chemicals, transportation equipment, and agricultural products. The United States imports 90 percent of ASEAN's natural rubber, and 38 percent of its tin, in addition to petroleum, sugar, palm oil, textiles, and electronic components.
An ASEAN model?
With the exception of Singapore, which won its spurs as an entrepôt par excellence, the ASEAN states have prospered by judicious exploitation of rich natural resources and all have driven their economies by export-led growth strategies and are market-oriented with a minimum of - or at least diminishing - government
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