He said Asean was now “the most stable regional organisation in the world, compared with EU (European Union), they are having problems.”
The prime minister, here to attend the 35th Asean Summit of government leaders, told the Malaysian media today that Asean’s successes were clearly reflected by the desire of many other countries wanting to join the grouping, as well as the expanding cooperation among its member states.
“Timor Leste, they want to join, I think we should accept them, but some member countries are still not comfortable,” he said.
Asean was incepted in 1967 with Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. as founding members. Later members included Brunei, Cambodia, and Vietnam, while Laos and Myanmar became the 9th and 10th members in July 1997.
Asean also has a close partnership with six countries in the Asia Pacific region – China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand.
Dr Mahathir added the regional grouping is also now reaping the fruits of its vision and cooperation, including being recognised as the East Asian community.
He added that the East Asia Economic Caucus has now also become a reality.
“People now refer to Asean+3 (China, Japan and South Korea) as the East Asian community. So we (Asean) have finally succeeded in being recognised as the East Asian community,” he said.
The East Asia Economic Caucus, a regional free trade zone for the ASEAN +3, was mooted by Dr Mahathir in 1997 as a reaction to Asean integration into the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation.
He noted that the Asean Summit now had a lot of new leaders.“Because of democracy, people change leaders. It is not like before where the leaders were always the same people,” said Mahathir, who returned to power in 2018 after stepping down in 2003 after 21 years.
The three-day summit ended today. Next year’s summit will be held in Vietnam.