By Felix Sharief French foreign minister Laurent Fabius visited Jakarta from July 31 to August 2 in an effort to build a bilateral strategic partnership with Indonesia. Fabius also visited the Secretariat of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN),…
By Jeff Mankoff When Asia’s leaders gathered in Phnom Penh for the seventh East Asia Summit (EAS) last month, one figure was notable by his absence: Russian President Vladimir Putin. For Russia, which is struggling to be accepted as a…
Who is he? Le Luong Minh is an experienced foreign policy practitioner with a strong strategic bent who was educated in India and earned his diplomatic spurs in high level roles in Europe and New York. He is currently Vietnam’s…
By Ernest Z. Bower, Senior Adviser and Director of the Southeast Asia Program, CSIS Ganesh, the elephant-headed Hindu god, is considered an important symbol in India and widely revered in mythology as the “remover of obstacles.” Strategically, including India in…
US President Barack Obama will host eight of the ten leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)[i] in New York on Friday, September 24, 2010 at the 2nd US ASEAN Summit. The meeting underlines renewed American policy energy being invested in Southeast Asia. Headlines from the discussion should focus on three areas …
The stakes are high in New York, and the fact the 2nd US ASEAN Summit is taking place is significant. It is a strong signal that the US is finding its way to more comprehensive engagement in Asia and following through on its commitments to try to build an enduring Asia strategy using ASEAN as a foundation.
Vietnam is providing very strong leadership in its role as ASEAN Chair in 2010. Expect that proactive leadership to continue next year as Indonesia, by far the largest country in ASEAN, takes over as Chair.
While the idea of combining the jobs of US Ambassador to ASEAN with Special Envoy for Burma offers a certain bureaucratic efficiency, pursing this option would undercut the ability of even the most experienced diplomat to deliver on each portfolio.
