Information and culture, by their very nature, are at the core of the work of ASEAN, at the heart of ASEAN cooperation. This is particularly so at this time, when ASEAN is entering upon a new stage in its history.

At its founding thirty-two years ago, ASEAN set for itself the goal of accelerating "the economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region through joint endeavours in the spirit of equality and partnership in order to strengthen the foundation for a prosperous and peaceful community of South-East Asian Nations." ASEAN's founders knew that for this to work ASEAN had to include all the nations of Southeast Asia and explicitly envisioned an association that is "open for participation to all States in the South-East Asian Region subscribing to (ASEAN's) aims, principles and purposes."

Since then, ASEAN has come a long way in fulfilling its founders' vision. All of Southeast Asia is now in ASEAN. Ten days ago, we saw the formal admission of Cambodia into our association, and today I join all of you in welcoming the Cambodian delegation, which is attending a COCI meeting for the first time as a full member. ASEAN has become an influential force in Asian and global affairs. The ASEAN economy is being integrated at a pace perhaps more rapid than even ASEAN's founders expected. ASEAN members are cooperating more closely than ever before in a large and growing number of areas of human endeavor - science and technology, health and education, agriculture and industry, the environment, the welfare of women and children, transnational crime, and, yes, culture and information.

The historical trends in our region and in the world as we approach a new century make Southeast Asian solidarity, integration and cooperation imperative and urgent as never before. These developments have had a deep impact on our people's lives, on their livelihoods, on their societies, on their relations with other countries and regions, on the relationships among nations in this area and in the world at large. This impact has given our peoples a keen sense that big changes are happening in the world around them and in their own societies.

What they perhaps only dimly perceive is that we in Southeast Asia can cope with these changes only if we work more closely together and act more strongly as one. This needs a heightened sense of regionalism and of a Southeast Asian identity. There is no longer any alternative to this.

The Trends of History

I will touch briefly upon three major historical trends that are sweeping our region and pressing upon us the need to tighten our bonds as an association of nations.

The first is the uncertain outlook for the strategic relationships among nations in our part of the world, something that has crucially to do with questions of peace and stability in our region. Partnerships and inter-relations are in flux. Strategic decisions are unpredictable, perhaps even to the decision-makers themselves.

The second is the globalization of the economy. Goods, services and capital flow much more freely in the world today. Barriers to such flows are coming down, and communications and transportation technology is making the flows easier. One consequence is that the relations between the world's corporations and states and societies have irrevocably changed. Even more than before, decisions on people's jobs and incomes are often made in places outside the countries where those people live and work. This same trend, however, offers tremendous opportunities for one's own companies and people to take if they are competitive and make themselves competitive and if the international rules of the game allow them to do so.

The third historical trend is the emergence of human problems that are increasingly transnational in nature. Among these are the pollution of the atmosphere and of the seas, the transmission of communicable diseases, piracy, drug-trafficking and other transnational crimes.

ASEAN's leaders, in their wisdom and to their everlasting credit, have decided that the way to deal with these massive trends is to strengthen Southeast Asia's solidarity, hasten and deepen its economic integration, and tighten its cooperation across the board. They know that global developments will engulf us to our peril unless we work together more closely to benefit from them.

ASEAN was founded basically to ensure that the states of Southeast Asia resolve their disputes peacefully and to keep rivalries among outside powers from being fought out in the region. To this end, ASEAN's networks of personal and institutional relations and frequent consultations at many levels have kept the peace in its area. ASEAN has declared Southeast Asia both a zone of peace, freedom and neutrality and a nuclear weapons-free zone that is based on a binding treaty. Five years ago, it established the ASEAN Regional Forum as a venue for dialogue and consultation among the countries of East Asia and others with interests in it so as to better manage potential problems in the area. It has been working fairly well so far.

Economic Integration

Southeast Asia has been hit by an economic and financial upheaval that resulted partly from economic globalization and partly from internal weaknesses. Contrary to the instant predictions of many, ASEAN's response has been to push further the integration of its economy. The implementation of the ASEAN Free Trade Area has been accelerated and deepened, so that by the beginning of 2000 it will have been substantially achieved. This means that in less than eight months from now almost ninety percent of traded goods within ASEAN will be flowing freely in the region. Work is being done on making trade easier within the region by bringing down technical barriers to trade, barriers pertaining to customs, standards and so on.

Negotiations are starting on similarly freeing trade in services in all sectors, such as transport, communications, financial services, construction, and tourism. ASEAN has decided to create an ASEAN Investment Area, in which ASEAN countries have opened up their manufacturing sectors to one another for investment. Investors from one ASEAN country in another ASEAN country will be treated like investors who are nationals of the country where the investment is made. At the same time, plans have been laid to bind the Southeast Asian economies together through networks of highways, communications links, gas pipelines, and power grids.

The idea is to create a large market of half a billion people with a GDP of US$700 billion. A market of this size would stimulate economic activity and improve the efficiency of production. Not least, it would attract investments much more effectively than smaller, fragmented markets.

ASEAN countries are, in a sense, also integrating their economies by being more open to one another. ASEAN has set up a mechanism for the exchange and collective analysis of financial and economic information and for peer review of country data and country policies. In this rather unprecedented way, we hope to nip future financial crises in the bud and to contain their impact.

The rise of serious transnational problems obviously requires transnational solutions. A country choking on the pollution from the burning of land and forests in a neighboring country cannot spare itself by blowing away the haze. All the countries involved, all of ASEAN, have to work together, as they have begun to do, to keep the fires from starting and prevent those that do start from spreading. The pollution of a sea that is shared by several countries can be fought only by those countries acting together. Piracy by its very nature can be dealt with most effectively through close regional cooperation. This is true also of drug-trafficking and of the trafficking in women and children.

Where do culture and information come in?

At their summit in Hanoi, ASEAN's leaders directed their ministers and officials to pursue the agenda that I have outlined through a coherent set of concrete measures contained in the Hanoi Plan of Action.

For the ministers and officials to do this effectively -- in some cases, if they are to do it at all -- they must have a constituency to support them; they must have their people behind them. Southeast Asian regionalism is a relatively new enterprise. It is certainly newer than regionalism in Western Europe, the Americas and the Arab world. Many Southeast Asians continue to think in narrow national terms, or in even narrower tribal, ethnic, provincial or insular ways.

The Imperatives of Regionalism

Our people must now be made more aware of the imperatives of regionalism. They must know that there is no alternative to it in this fast-changing and fast-globalizing world. They must know, for example, the benefits to them of an integrated regional market even if it may require some painful adjustments at first. They must be aware of the critical importance of regional solidarity for their own security. They must be convinced that they have to work together with their neighbors if they are to conquer some of the grave problems that plague their lives and their communities.

This requires, of course, information. It calls upon the practitioners of public information in ASEAN and those who manage ASEAN cooperation in information to take responsibility for this work of creating and strengthening the constituency of regionalism.

It also means culture. People of diverse histories and national loyalties need a strong sense of regional identity to make them act on behalf of regional enterprises. They must, first of all, trust one another; and they can do so only if they know, understand and appreciate Southeast Asia's cultures in all their diversity, in all their facets - as well as those things that they have in common, those things that give them a Southeast Asian identity.

I suggest that this be at the top of the agenda of those who work on cultural cooperation in ASEAN. It is not enough to promote one's own national cultural projects. It is necessary, now more than ever, to work together for common purposes in the service of a regional agenda.

Let us take heed of our leaders' vision of "an ASEAN community conscious of its ties of history, aware of its cultural heritage and bound by a common regional identity." That is from ASEAN Vision 2020, a statement issued by the ASEAN heads of state and government at their summit in December 1997.

But ASEAN should not stop at its own borders in the work of information and culture. We need to project ASEAN to the world beyond, to the hubs of international media, to the centers of global political and economic power, to those who make investment decisions. Our leaders command us, in the Hanoi Plan of Action, to launch "a concerted communications programme to promote ASEAN's standing in the international community and strengthen confidence in ASEAN as an ideal place for investment, trade and tourism."

In practical terms, how can we attract investments into the region if the world does not know what we are doing to enlarge the ASEAN market, make its economy more efficient and transparent, reform our institutions, and extend new incentives for investors? In many areas, our cooperative projects need external support. How can our partners sustain their support if their political constituencies do not know what ASEAN is all about or, worse, if they have a negatively distorted view of it? The commentaries about ASEAN in the wake of the Asian financial crisis dramatized how sadly lacking and how distorted people's knowledge of ASEAN has been.

I need not go on along these lines. I have nothing to teach professional practitioners of public information and of cultural propagation. I dwell on these things only to stress the vital work awaiting COCI in these critical times for ASEAN and for our countries.

It is in this light that I wish the 34th COCI meeting success.