CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- During high-level meetings, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, born more than three decades ago, tends to come under criticism, mainly from the international press but sometimes from analysts and academics, as a "talking shop." Even an authority like Samuel Huntington, in his famous "Clash of Civilizations," at first admits to something that applies to several other regional organizations as well -- the problem of "maintaining coherence." He goes on to voice concern about the organization's "slow pace" of progress in many fields, characterizing ASEAN's post-ministerial conferences as merely "for bilateral conversations" and castigating the ASEAN Regional Forum, or ARF, as "a place for collective talk, not collective action."

His conclusion: It has "limitations" inherent "in multicivilizational regional organizations." He calls the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum "an even weaker talking shop than ASEAN." Of course, a score of remarks of the same nature can be found within segments of ASEAN societies themselves, some of which share in the climate of negative evaluation. Some very pessimistic analysts have even downgraded the most recently established format of ASEAN plus Three (Japan, China, South Korea) as "Three plus ASEAN."

I do not wish to become an all-out apologist for this organization. Shortcomings are obvious and certainly inevitable. The yardstick of achievements is subject to various interpretations. My only concern is that we keep a proper perspective as we examine the efforts, dreams and mistakes of half a billion people.