ASEAN is a year shy of its 60th birthday. As happens each November, it will gather — this time in the Philippines — for a pageant of summitry where not just regional luminaries but global leaders, including United States President Donald Trump, will show up.
Warding off geopolitical tensions was what Asean was originally set up to undertake and today, that remains its primary raison d'etre — although today's geopolitical challenges have changed as the rivalry animating global politics now mostly revolves around the Sino-US relationship as opposed to the US-Soviet one before.
But while geopolitics — as it involves our region — can at best be managed, Asean has too often been so pre-occupied with it that it tends to neglect other equally serious matters.
