munist Vietnam was admitted to ASEAN in an initiation ceremony in Kuala Lampur. The Malaysian Foreign Minister at the time, Abdullah Badawi conducted the ceremonies and said in a speech "With Vietnam's entry, a very important step has now been built towards reaching the target of making ASEAN truly the association of all Southeast Asian nations" (Son, 1995, 2.2). Shortly after Vietnam's welcome, however, a major leak developed in the ASEAN member states' economies.
The only countries that still had not been admitted to ASEAN by May of 1997 were Cambodia, Burma, and Laos. However, the idea of a United Southeast Asia was still a goal as the organization entered its 30th year. A willingness to "bend the rules" somewhat was expressed to deal with, what was at the time, considered the primary diplomatic barrier to unity -- the dictatorship in Burma (called Myanmar after a 1988 coup led by a military junta). An article in The Economist in March. 1997, wondered why the seven member nations were in such a rush to admit the three holdouts. The question was raised, that since this was already "a successful club. . . [it was not] clear why the present members. . . [were] in such a hurry to welcome them?" (Never mind the quality..., 1997, 40). The article then analyzed the coup in Myanmar and announced that the three nations were set to join in July, 1997. The article stated that "Privately, ASEAN officials say that barring disasters, such as a massacre in Myanmar or an outbreak of civil war in Cambodia, their timetable is set" (Never mind the quality..., 1997, 41).
Less than four months after that article was printed, a brutal coup took place in Cambodia, in which the country's second-in-command, Hun Sen, got rid of the ruler, Prince Norodom Ranariddh. The ASEAN nations had always pledged non-interference in each others' internal affairs but this incident put even more of a strain on the delicate negotiations (Casseres-Gomez, 1...