First, leaders at the summit made efforts to implement regional integration. At the opening ceremony they sang the ASEAN anthem so as to boost morale. They also signed the Cha-am Hua Hin Declaration on the Roadmap for an ASEAN Community (2009-15), which will serve as a guide for accelerating regional integration. The declaration focused on establishing a regional economic community, political-security community and socio-cultural community. Last year, ASEAN issued its Economic Community Blueprint. During the Hua Hin summit, ASEAN released the ASEAN Political-Security Community Blueprint and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Blueprint, completing the set of blueprints for establishing an ASEAN community by 2015.

ASEAN concentrated on several areas in the roadmap. First, ASEAN intends to set up its own human rights institute. To bypass member disputes over its structure, the leaders agreed to establish a group of senior legislation experts to submit a feasibility report, which they will discuss by the end of the year. The second is to strengthen conflict prevention mechanisms. ASEAN plans to issue an annual regional security report starting in 2009, in an attempt to establish a voluntary reporting system for internal political and security situations. Moreover, ASEAN is preparing to give regional security meetings, such as the defense ministers' meeting and the security policy meeting under the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) framework, a bigger role in the region. ASEAN leaders also planned to launch an observation system by dispatching observers to other member states. Finally, they will set up an alert system to prevent and cope with emergencies.

Second, ASEAN is trying to concentrate regional power, strengthen regional coordination and enhance its ability to deal with crises so as to regain leadership in regional cooperation. During the summit, ASEAN leaders discussed how to cope with the financial crisis and reached consensus on their common stance for the Group of 20 summit set to take place in London this April. They also signed an agreement establishing a free trade area between ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand, underlining those countries' opposition to trade protectionism. Leaders expressed support for a regional foreign exchange reserve co-managed by ASEAN along with China, Japan and South Korea as soon as possible, so as to enhance their ability to defend against financial turmoil. Furthermore, ASEAN plans to strengthen ties with organizations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Gulf Cooperation Council, UN Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Rio Group, and is considering opening offices overseas.

ASEAN appealed for stronger regional security cooperation as well as coordinated economic measures, highlighting the role that ARF is playing. Established in 1994, ARF is the only governmental security dialogue system in the Asia-Pacific region. Leaders at the ASEAN Summit decided to expand the rights of the chair state and build the ARF generally into a platform for defense diplomacy.

Third, the summit invited ambassadors of big countries, like China and the United States, to participate in the opening ceremony to win these countries' support and attention. In 2008, the United States changed its usual disregard for ASEAN and became the first country to dispatch an ambassador to the ASEAN Secretariat. China and other countries have also nominated their ambassadors to ASEAN. Both the Chinese and U.S. ambassadors to ASEAN expressed their countries' willingness to strengthen cooperation with ASEAN. Chinese Ambassador Xue Hanqin stressed that encouraging communication, connections, coordination and cooperative suggestions would be the way. His U.S. counterpart Scott Marciel said the United States was open to suggestions from ASEAN on how to promote cooperation between the United States and ASEAN.

Hope and difficulties

ASEAN has experience and capability in coping with crises. In 1997, ASEAN, which once planned to become a pole in the Asia-Pacific region, was badly hit by the financial crisis, and was immediately downgraded by the West from "the most successful regional cooperative organization besides the EU" to a "sunset organization." But ASEAN countries did not give up. On their own, they tried to heal their economic wounds by all available means. At the same time, they pursued regional cooperation with China, Japan and South Korea and creatively resisted the risks brought by globalization. By 2001, ASEAN economies had mostly recovered, and ASEAN had once again become the driving force behind East Asian cooperation, having been revived with the support of countries like China. ASEAN even cast itself as "the heart of a vibrant Asia" at its 40th anniversary in 2007.