Restoring Southeast Asia’s position as the crossroads of Asia

Wary Neighbors Turn Into Partners in a Quickly Developing Southeast Asia – NYT, July 5, 2012
…There is an absolute monarchy, Brunei. There are also two nominally Marxist countries, Laos and Vietnam; and a freewheeling democracy prone to military coups, Thailand. At the geographical extremes are Indonesia, which is mostly Muslim and is the world’s largest archipelago, and Myanmar, largely Buddhist, with mountains that form the foothills of the Himalayas.
But the integration of Southeast Asia has taken on a life of its own. It more closely resembles the European Economic Community, an early predecessor to the European Union, than it does the current European bloc, which is struggling to reconcile its plans for a common monetary policy with its lack of fiscal and political unity…