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BANGKOK, Jan 18 (Reporting ASEAN) – ASEAN. Whether you love reporting on it, or would rather flee from it, the ASEAN Community will continue to stay within the news radar of Southeast Asia’s media and journalists. This handy booklet takes not only journalists but students and followers of foreign policy, media and development, or anyone […]

Click to download the report on the results of Reporting ASEAN’s survey among editors in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam, The gems in this in formation-gathering exercise lie in the editors’ evaluations of how familiar their organizations and journalists are with ASEAN issues, what news priority they give to ASEAN- related coverage, their assessments of the strengths, weaknesses and needs of their journalists, as well as what they identify as the toughest reporting challenges in covering ASEAN’s role, relevance and impact.

Next year, 2020, is the ‘Year of ASEAN Identity’. But 52 years after its creation, ASEAN’s identity markers have been confined to bureaucratic circles instead of seeping into the public, popular sphere. How far can having an ASEAN flag, emblem go? Kavi Chongkittavorn explains in this commentary for the #ReportingASEAN series.

For Lao film producer Vannaphone Sitthirath, a two-hour visit to the Rohingya refugee camp in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh leads to reflections about the gift of having options in life, and questions about practices like polygamy. She shares these thoughts in this article for the Reporting ASEAN series.

2 OCTOBER 2019 | Reporting ASEAN Vietnam is fully plugged into Asean as Southeast Asia’s regional family, Tran Viet Thai of the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam says in the conversation below. Vietnam becomes Asean Chair next year, and 2020 marks the country’s 25th anniversary as a full Asean member. Mr Thai explains how Asean has […]

As Vietnam deepens linkages with other ASEAN countries, more younger professionals are venturing into the region in search of work, professional development and meaningful life experiences beyond the homeland. Thanh Nien News’ Diep Uyen looks into how ASEAN integration has made more Vietnamese regional, and global, citizens.

Sustainability is the key priority for Thailand during its ASEAN chairmanship for 2019. This, in turn, points to ASEAN’s need to address the impacts and challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution or “4IR”, so that  the ASEAN Community can catch up with, and make good use of, global innovations to help sustain long-term development. This commentary by the Department of Information of the Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs explains how Thailand aims  to push this issue.

Keen to bury memories of the diplomatic black eye it got when local protests threw into disarray its ASEAN chairmanship in 2009, Thailand is bent on making sure that this year’s meetings not only go well – but close at yearend with a clear, spicy Thai flavor to ASEAN 2019. Reporting ASEAN’s Johanna Son reports.

In recent years, Cambodia has been criticised for not investing enough in ASEAN. But this analysis by Chheang Vannarith makes the case for Cambodia viewing ASEAN as the catalyst of regional economic integration and economic diversification, a shield to protect its sovereignty and independence, and a platform to promote its national identity and prestige.

The Reporting ASEAN program has a new media skills-building program around reporting fellowships and training with the aim of understanding ASEAN integration and issues better, for stronger storytelling from the perspective of Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam, also known as the CLMV countries. Watch out for our stories.

In the first episode of our Teashop Talk, Reporting ASEAN’s Johanna Son talks to senior media trainers about where coverage of ASEAN issues is in Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Vietnam, and what skills would help local journalists report more creatively and confidently about regional matters.

The Lao People’s Democratic Republic has been an ASEAN member country for two decades, but many Lao people don’t feel very connected it. However, they generally believe that being part of the ASEAN family as it deepens linkages within can only benefit the country, Vannaphone Sitthirath explains in this Reporting ASEAN feature.

More than 20 years after Vietnam joined ASEAN, ASEAN’s work and impact have not seen much in-depth coverage – or media interest – in the country. Nguyen Ngoc Tran looks into why this is so in this commentary for Reporting ASEAN.

Despite bureaucratic obstacles and what some call the ASEAN Community’s slow progress, the idea of ASEAN as a single unit – a linked set of peoples and societies and a market – is slowly gaining ground in Vietnam. Read more in this report by Le Trieu for the Reporting ASEAN series.

“There are so many things to learn, to hear from the other organisations and CSOs,” Nguyen Thi Kim Que, vice director of the Centre for Sustainable Development Studies in Vietnam, said after taking part in the 2^nd S Rajaratnam Endowment (SRE) ASEAN Community Forum in Singapore in August 2017.

The ASEAN Economic Community is supposed to make it easier for ASEAN nationals to live and work in one another’s countries. But many Indonesians don’t know about the Mutual Recognition Arrangements designed to ease the movement of skilled labor  – or understand them correctly. The result? Fear and misperception, explains Ursula Florene of Rappler Indonesia in her article for the Reporting ASEAN programme.

At 50 years old, ASEAN has a lot of work to do to boost its internal strength, making itself more of a middle power through concrete steps that include implementing its own agreements, reviewing its currency basket, giving national treatment to its own investors – and beefing up its own security discussion forums. Johanna Son of Reporting ASEAN explains more.

ASEAN is basking in its 50-year glory, but this milestone has also shown how it is, in a sense, its own weak spot. The challenge from within ASEAN itself is its refusal or inability to fix itself from within so that it is solid enough to stave off divisions caused by the presence or absence of external powers, whether it be China, or the United States, explains Johanna Son.

As ASEAN reaches the 50-year mark, it should free itself from the old confines of navigating between the big powers and build its muscle as a middle power – one that confidently and collectively holds its own against undue external pressures, be it China, the United States, or others. Johanna Son* reports.