STRATEGIC CENTRALITY: Indonesia's Changing Role in ASEAN.

• Author: SUBRITZKY, JOHN
• Position: Review

STRATEGIC CENTRALITY: Indonesia's Changing Role in ASEAN Author: Anthony L. Smith Published by: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore, 2000, 88pp, S$19.90.

ASEAN has rightly been cited by many commentators as one of the world's most successful regional organisations insofar as the maintenance of regional stability is concerned. It was formed out of the ashes of Indonesia's unsuccessful Confrontation of Malaysia in the mid-1960s. Since then ASEAN has chalked up some significant diplomatic achievements, notably its role in forcing a peaceful conclusion to Vietnam's occupation of Cambodia. But its most enduring success has been to help reconcile disparate and formerly hostile neighbours in the membership itself. In this context, Indonesia, easily the largest country in ASEAN, has played a key founding role in formulating the driving principles that have guided the organisation since its creation.

Strategic Centrality focuses on the relationship between Indonesia and ASEAN. Anthony Smith asserts that, during the latter Suharto period, Jakarta assumed an implicit leadership position in ASEAN. Given this fact, it is not surprising that Indonesia's recent political and economic upheavals have had -- and will almost certainly continue to have -- major implications for ASEAN. Even the principle of...