Steady progress in building ASEAN Economic Community

[kalu_miah]

@kalu_miah @Nihonjin1051

How would you guys feel if I said Japan and Korea is not strong enough to lead a coalition as effectively as the US?

Japan is technologically advanced, but it's Aegis ships are actually few in numbers, most Japanese DDGs are just somewhat better than the DDGs pre-052C.

Japanese LHD is the major threat, but in terms of landing operations, our LPDs are way better, I have heard Japan looking into this type of ship, but haven't heard more.

We will go for a 6 LPD +6 LHD configuration by 2025 more or less, which should place us on some what of a equal footing, but Japan may have the advantage still in Helicopter tech.

If we can get SK to remain neutral which is highly likely, but better if we can get them to fight on our side, that would be awesome. In terms of trade, cash, political influence, and even NK, we can offer them a much bigger reward, than Japan can.

Without going too far into it, ASEAN navies are negligible at best, and doesn't come into this equation.

But as a disclaimer before some dude comes in here and accuse something, this is just for fun, consider it a fanfic.

You are looking at only military hardware, but we are thinking in terms of human resource and economic development, which auto magically eventually translates into military power in the long term.

You have a point about Korea remaining neutral, but when they see a team full of friendly South East Asian and South Asian nations and no possibility of any domination by any one country such as Japan, I think they will gladly join this club. It is better than being a glorified vassal state. But then again I could be wrong about this. Its hard to predict what will happen in the future.

 

[Jlaw]

It is natural to have different values between individuals with different backgrounds. But the key is to unite for a common cause, which is we are smaller nations and we need to team up to make a greater team to gain competitive edge and face threats we cannot face by ourselves.

The goal of creating an alliance is to become a big boy, so I don't see why Japan or any other elected leader, cannot act as a big boy with other big boys of the world, on behalf of all the small boy members in the alliance.

I am glad that you frankly tell us that you feel threatened by this move. I like your honesty.

Alliance formation is not against international law, there is already precedence, so I am not sure what China can do to prevent it.

I can see where you're coming from. Your country is being bullied from India and you feel by joining an alliance, it will stop the bullying. Even if the alliance did work out, which I know it won't , Bd will still be bullied. Japan will find that India is a bigger customer for their goods than Bd thus they will not do anything irrational to anger India. Japan also want to use India as a counter to China. In the eyes of Japanese, India is more important than BD. Thus Indian intervention will still continue.

If India decide to start a war with Bd, than based on the alliance ASEAN will have to step in and defend your country. What if India does not invade you but continue to play this little game with you? Than you are back to status quo.
Let's say India does invade Bd. I and others do not think the ASEAN alliance will come to your rescue. The reason is there is not much to gain and more to lose by helping you. These other countries probably have more economic ties to India than with Bd. The other ASEAN countries will be hesitant to send troops to bd because they do not want their soldiers to potentially die and a prolong war will damage their economy.

Xunzi have mentioned other good points such as the ASEAN alliance require a leader to dictate its goals. US is the leader of NATO with bases in its alliances' countries. Who will be the leader of this ASEAN? Will BD, Vietnam, Malaysia allow Japan or SK to have bases in their countries? Do you want Japanese military base in Bd?

In theory it's good, but in practice the alliance is doom to fail before it is even started.

 

[NiceGuy]

Xunzi have mentioned other good points such as the ASEAN alliance require a leader to dictate its goals. US is the leader of NATO with bases in its alliances' countries. Who will be the leader of this ASEAN? Will BD, Vietnam, Malaysia allow Japan or SK to have bases in their countries? Do you want Japanese military base in Bd?

In theory it's good, but in practice the alliance is doom to fail before it is even started.

Who will be the leader of this ASEAN ?? yeah, VN is the only country can take that position bcz VN is the only country in ASEAN have ballistic ground- attack missile Scub to destroy China air base in Spratly isl.

Other ASEAN nations will taste China's bullies soon if they dont seek VN's support .

Just kidding, we dont wanna be ASEAN leader, but China's bullies to all ASEAN is real, and it will come in near future

 

[Genesis]

You are looking at only military hardware, but we are thinking in terms of human resource and economic development, which auto magically eventually translates into military power in the long term.

You have a point about Korea remaining neutral, but when they see a team full of friendly South East Asian and South Asian nations and no possibility of any domination by any one country such as Japan, I think they will gladly join this club. It is better than being a glorified vassal state. But then again I could be wrong about this. Its hard to predict what will happen in the future.

Why would Korea be a vessel state? That's like saying the UK is a vessel state. A unified Korea gives them more to work with and their navy and economy is more than capable of charting their own course with occasional co-op with China. Japan and South Korean navy are similar in capability.


I am only looking at hardware, what you are looking at is also "only" at hardware, because you believe it will eventually translate into hardware, so the final factor is still hardware.


I throw this at you, China's rise in military capability is far faster than any and all. So, in the long term the difference will be far greater, not smaller.

 

[Jlaw]

Who will be the leader of this ASEAN ?? yeah, VN is the only country can take that position bcz VN is the only country in ASEAN have ballistic ground- attack missile Scub to destroy China air base in Spratly isl.

Other ASEAN nations will taste China's bullies soon if they dont seek VN's support .

Just kidding, we dont wanna be ASEAN leader, but China's bullies to all ASEAN is real, and it will come in near future

Another reason why ASEAN will fail. If you need to rely on VN as part of your team, forget about it. @kalu_miah

 

[NiceGuy]

Another reason why ASEAN will fail. If you need to rely on VN as part of your team, forget about it. @kalu_miah

If they help VN to unite sub-Mekong region to make VN stronger, then we can help other nations to return the favor

VN is nice, friendly and a good protector too. Everyone can see we protect Laos-Camb very well, no terrorism, no political mess in those nations.

 

[somsak]

Hi war monger freinds

I just come back from Artificial Intelligence Conference in the U.S.
Here are the result.

This field has a huge advancement. It has military application for example Face Verification, Face Recognition,
Data classification, Self Drive Car (perhaps tanks or drone for war monger friends here), and other statistical learning machines.
Machines which learns from pass failure/success. One of the professor in my field of study is working on self-acrobat helicopters.
You can see self-acrobat dog fighter drone in the future. Or Self-trajectory-design missiles.

From what I see
U.S dominates --> I can not count. There are too many papers, but even not so famous US universities still get a good publication
East Asian face ~40% of total #participants. Majoirity of them are working/studying in U.S university, some of them from Asia.
Among Asia -> China dominates. Hongkong University, Chinese Academy of Science, Tsinghua
Tsinghua publication = Tokyo University publication. But Japan only has Tokyo Insti. Tech, and University of Tokyo. I suspect that Japanese # papers submission is low. Perhaps due to writing paper in Japanese and submit in domestic Japan.
Among ASEAN, Singapore has around 4-5 papers.

-- and ASEAN friends --- interestingly, Vietnam Unviersity 1 paper. I don't see paper from Indonesia, Thailand,Lao, Cambodia, Myanmar Brunei, Malaysia

In the past, the only paper source from ASEAN I noticed except Singapore is Malaysia.

This ASEAN #paper number may be incorrect, due to the fact that my main interest is not who produce it, but how these papers can be used in my work no matter who produce it.

Just to tell War mongers here that there are other aspect of ASEAN to develop. In the field of Science, there is a big room here.

 

[visom]

I always wondered if ASEAN would have its own currency just like the European Union has Euros

 

[xunzi]

If I may interject, why do you think the US would come to your rescue for any threat you face? Isn't that exactly the opposite situation now?

We don't need them to rescue us. But we can cooperate together to craft a strategy to reduce this Asia bloc potential to challenge the big 3 power (USA, Russia, China) because this alliance intention is clear to all. After all we do have interest in maintaining global order. Also it is not the first time we allied with the US for strategic interest. We cooperate with them before.

 

[sahaliyan]

I don't think the Koreans have any interests to form allice with Southeast Asian countries.The Koreans know the Chinese way of acting,we will not interfere in the internal affairs of other countries,ask any Pakistani members here,did we interfere in the internal affairs of Pakistan?
If the Koreans can enjoy the independence and self-rule,why should they form anllice to southeast asian countries?Those countries' culture alien to Koreans

 

[55100864]

You are looking at only military hardware, but we are thinking in terms of human resource and economic development, which auto magically eventually translates into military power in the long term.

You have a point about Korea remaining neutral, but when they see a team full of friendly South East Asian and South Asian nations and no possibility of any domination by any one country such as Japan, I think they will gladly join this club. It is better than being a glorified vassal state. But then again I could be wrong about this. Its hard to predict what will happen in the future.

I think every one would welcome such alliance if it 's purely a economic one, in that case, of course South Korean would join, China would like to join too, but I think there is on such thing called economic alliance, free trade agreement would be more appropriate.

If it's about EU like regional economic, political alliance, I would say nearly impossible, ASEAN itself is very immature , the economic, technology, culture, even race among these countries vary hugely, not to mention the different geopolitical nature, Even EU is highly fragmented despite decades of integration. ASEAN plus Japan, SK, BD, SL, in my option, is illogic.

If it is all about counter China, I bet South Korean will stay neutral, and countries like Vietnam, Taiwan, by logic, should stay neutral, in fact, every ASEAN countries should not see China as a treat, we planed to outsource our manufacture to South East Asian like Indonesia and Vietnam so they can become next China to enjoin the double digit growth, but we all know that Vietnam always make stupid decision when it comes to take side. If a war breaks out between US and China (highly unlikely), it would only be a limited regional war like Korean War, a full scale war between US and China is impossible because it will certainly lead to WW III, a disaster of humanity which there will be no winner and loser. So just imagine if a limited regional war breaks out between US and China, it would be extremely stupid for SK, Vietnam And Taiwan to side with US, because the battle will only take place in Korean Peninsula, Vietnam and Taiwan, not mainland China or US, in that case, whoever wins the war, the loser would certainly be Korean and Vietnam.

 

[Nike]

I always wondered if ASEAN would have its own currency just like the European Union has Euros

should be based on Dollar Singapore value i wonder, their currency is strong and stable unlike the other in the regions i think except for Malaysian ringgit

 

[sahaliyan]

I think every one would welcome such alliance if it 's purely a economic one, in that case, of course South Korean would join, China would like to join too, but I think there is on such thing called economic alliance, free trade agreement would be more appropriate.
If it's about EU like regional economic, political alliance, I would say nearly impossible, ASEAN itself is very immature , the economic, technology, culture, even race vary hugely, not to mention the different geopolitical nature among ASEAN countries, Even EU is highly fragmented despite decades of integration. ASEAN plus Japan, SK, BD, SL, in my option, is illogic.
If it is all about counter China, I bet South Korean will stay neutral, and countries like Vietnam, Taiwan, by logic, should stay neutral, in fact, every ASEAN countries should not see China as a treat, we planed to outsource our manufacture to South East Asian like Indonesia and Vietnam so they can become next China to enjoin the double digit growth, but we all know that Vietnam always make stupid decision when it comes to take side. If a war breaks out between US and China (highly unlikely), it would only be a limited regional war like Korean War, a full scale war between US and China is impossible because it will certainly lead to WW III, a disaster of humanity which there will be no winner and loser. So just imagine if a limited regional war breaks out between US and China, it would be extremely stupid for SK, Vietnam And Taiwan to side with US, because the battle field will only be Korean Peninsula, Vietnam and Taiwan, not mainland China or US, in that case, whoever wins the war, the loser would certainly be Korean and Vietnam.

Some countries in ASEAN are clearly pro-China:Cambodia,Indonesia
And some are neutral:Thailand,Malaysia and Brunei.
Though the Chinese government didn't openly declare,but it's already clear,we already give up the sovereignty claims of southern part of the South China sea,so we have no Territorial dispute with Malaysia and Brunei.
And countries like Indonesia are our natural allies,from Chinese point of view,a strong Indonesia will benefit for our national interests

 

[kalu_miah]

I can see where you're coming from. Your country is being bullied from India and you feel by joining an alliance, it will stop the bullying. Even if the alliance did work out, which I know it won't , Bd will still be bullied. Japan will find that India is a bigger customer for their goods than Bd thus they will not do anything irrational to anger India. Japan also want to use India as a counter to China. In the eyes of Japanese, India is more important than BD. Thus Indian intervention will still continue.

If India decide to start a war with Bd, than based on the alliance ASEAN will have to step in and defend your country. What if India does not invade you but continue to play this little game with you? Than you are back to status quo.
Let's say India does invade Bd. I and others do not think the ASEAN alliance will come to your rescue. The reason is there is not much to gain and more to lose by helping you. These other countries probably have more economic ties to India than with Bd. The other ASEAN countries will be hesitant to send troops to bd because they do not want their soldiers to potentially die and a prolong war will damage their economy.

Xunzi have mentioned other good points such as the ASEAN alliance require a leader to dictate its goals. US is the leader of NATO with bases in its alliances' countries. Who will be the leader of this ASEAN? Will BD, Vietnam, Malaysia allow Japan or SK to have bases in their countries? Do you want Japanese military base in Bd?

In theory it's good, but in practice the alliance is doom to fail before it is even started.

A military alliance may not mean an EU style union, but it will definitely mean greater economic integration between allied countries, just like we see among NATO and partners. There is about a billion people in these countries, if all available countries become members and the collective economy will be far greater than that of India. Any member country must put the strategic, military and economic interest of any other member country above their economic relations with non-member countries. Why would people take this kind of economic hit, because it concerns their security. Money will not buy you soldiers from members countries who committed in a military alliance with your country and will keep your country secure from outside threat.

India will find it difficult to play game with BD if BD becomes a member of an alliance as allied countries will put pressure on India to stop its illegal interference in the internal affairs of another sovereign country. India has no reason to invade BD, but if it does, then all other members of the alliance will be duty bound to intervene militarily, just like Article 5 of NATO, an attack on one is an attack on all. Economic ties will always be secondary to military ties, as has been shown in many previous wars in recent history in past centuries. If any country violates the mutual defense treaty clauses, then they will be expelled or suspended or downgraded, according to alliance rules:
What is NATO?
"NATO is committed to the principle that an attack against one or several members is considered as an attack against all. This is the principle of collective defence, which is enshrined in Article 5 of the Washington Treaty.

So far, Article 5 has been invoked once - in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States."

The whole idea of collective self defense is that all member country armed forces will be willing to die for the safety of any other member country, so without that kind of commitment, by definition there is no military alliance.

Basing rights will definitely be part of the alliance structure for member countries, if it is required for collective self defense.

 

[Cossack25A1]

I always wondered if ASEAN would have its own currency just like the European Union has Euros

I doubt that this would happen. Just look at what is happening at the Euro at present times.