I will begin with Asean in the context of South-east Asia as a region. What is this region? Because that is, to me, central to the whole story. Asean and South-east Asia - the two names are often taken together. But I think we should be very clear that they are very different in many ways. When we talk about South-east Asia, we all know which are the countries we refer to. But for thousands of years while the region has been there, it never had one single identity. Asean is so new - we date from 1967. Some people may say we date it from 1999, when all 10 countries became members of Asean.

"South-east Asia" itself has a name. It was some time during the middle of World War II that the term was used, essentially by strategists for the former empires. Looking at the lands that they were about to leave, how would they maintain any influence in that area? That's the starting point. So they named it "South-east Asia".