Nan, China isn't even a member.

 

The 10 member nations are:

 

Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

 

Most of those countries probably wouldn't want much to do with China (culturally) anyway.

 

 

I would think that the somewhat frosty on again, off again relationship we seem to have publily with Malaysia would be a sticking point in our being selected by some of the member states.

 

Funny how we are a member of APEC but can't get full support for ASEAN.

 

Curious.

 

I don't think we should be tripping over ourselves to engage with ASEAN. Most of their work is ineffectual, they are far too tolerant of lousy regimes like Burma's and thier membership criteria has strong racist overtones. I don't want Australia to be seen to be lending credibility to that sort of rubbish by kow-towing to them. We have strong bilateral and multi-lateral defence ties in the region, so AFAIC we can afford to ignore this.

And what better way at influencing Burma's despotic regime than by joining in dialogue with them.

 

Personally I think ASEAN should show some balls and issue an ultimatum, democratize or your not part of ASEAN anymore...

 

On another note, what would people here think of a unified currency for the Asia-Pacific region?  Economics aside, travelling would be awesome, one currency, free movement across the world's largest and most populated area.

Mate, I hate to say it but if you believe that having a chat to Burma's military leaders through ASEAN is going to have any influence on them, then you may as well start believing in the fairy's at the bottom of the garden. Furthermore, if you believe that ASEAN is going to issue any ultimatums to it's members in their internal affairs, then you could safely believe that Tinkerbell is f*cking the Chief Gnome ;-).

 

ASEAN is built on the principle of "non-interferance", i.e. don't tell the elites who run your neighbouring state that they are being naughty for oppressing and ripping off the great unwashed. In fact I think that "non-interferance" has even been allevated to the status of an "Asian Value", by those who it suits to do so. That's why ASEAN a particularily useless forum through which to address human-rights.

 

As for a unified currency, it ain't going to happen while there is so much economic disparity between the countries in the region. Can you imagine how difficult it would be if you had an event like the Asian financial crisis in 1997, which affected the likes of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and the Phillipines, but not Australia and Singapore? The central bank would have the impossible task of setting interest rates for widely varying economic circumstances. Also, if a strong economy like Australia dragged up the value of the regional currency it would destroy the competitiveness of weaker economies like Thailand, which rely on cheap exports and tourism for their economic development. It can only work in a place like Europe where there is a comparable levels of wealth.

 

PS, what are you doing with yourself nowdays, have you finished uni yet? If not it must be getting pretty close. Any plans?

Mate, I hate to say it but if you believe that having a chat to Burma's military leaders through ASEAN is going to have any influence on them, then you may as well start believing in the fairy's at the bottom of the garden. Furthermore, if you believe that ASEAN is going to issue any ultimatums to it's members in their internal affairs, then you could safely believe that Tinkerbell is f*cking the Chief Gnome ;-).

There are a number of reasons to not care about Krudds APU, the main one is that it is just another bit of fluff created on the run to cover the embaressment generated by his last bit of off the cuff policy making - still, once he has achieved this he will be moving on creating a commision devoted to removing all nukes from the world (its funny no-one has thought of that before...)

regardless, I wouldn't be promoting the EU as something to aspire to, they all have unsustainable social services liabilities and are not making any effort to deal with them which means financial  collapse and the only people breeding to any significant degree in most EU countries are muslim immigrants - culturally the EU is circling the drain.