Delegates from 10 ASEAN member nations and three Northeast Asian
economic powerhouses, collectively known as ASEAN+3, ended the East Asia Vision
Group II (EAVG II) meeting in Badung on Friday.
The delegates will return home
with a broader perspective on Southeast Asia’s place in Asia, according to one
participant.
“This partnership is going to
change the image of East Asia from just being Northeast Asia to including the
whole of East Asia, both North and South, where ASEAN comes in,” Filipino
representative Rosario G Manalo told Bali Daily on the sidelines of the meeting
on Friday.
“It will elevate ASEAN to be
recognized as part of East Asia,” Rosario said the last day of the EAVG II,
which was hosted by the Foreign Ministry from Sept. 5 to 7.
“When people talk about East
Asia, they only think of Japan or China. Not anymore. East Asia is much bigger
than just China and Japan, because it includes the 10 ASEAN countries. That’s
very important. It’s the evolution of identity of ASEAN,” Rosario said.
The EAVG II comprised former and
current government officials, heads of think tanks and other experts in East
Asian cooperation from ASEAN’s 10 member nations — Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia,
Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and
Vietnam — and three Northeast Asian nations: China, Japan and South Korea.
The EAVG II meeting was proposed
during the ASEAN+3 Summit in 2010 by South Korea to lay out a new vision of
cooperation in East Asia.
In its first and second sessions,
EAVG II delegates reviewed progress on cooperation projects of the ASEAN+3,
while in its third and fourth sessions delegates examined possible visions for
cooperation in the region.
Rosario said that the delegates
refined a vision for an integrated East Asian economy by 2020 that would
supplement ASEAN’s planned economic community in 2015.
Indonesian representative Jusuf
Wanandi acknowledged the challenges ahead.
“There are a lot of national
interests stressed by each country at the moment. However, current issues can
only be solved mutually,” Jusuf said.
Rosario agreed.
“If we want to prosper together,
there must be willingness from both sides to resolve the issues. The more we
try to engage in prosperity together, the more we will be bound to solve the
issues,” Rosario said.
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