The South Leading the North: ASEAN's Initiative for Asia-Pacific Regionalism.

In this paper, I explore the purpose of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the fruit of ASEAN’s initiative. I argue that the purpose of the ARF for ASEAN is to teach its cooperative security norm to external powers. I also demonstrate that ASEAN’s initiative has been fruitful. The commitments to cooperative security on the part of external powers, such as China, are remarkable. They have been influenced by the prevailing ideational structure in the forum, and their policies have been converging on ASEAN-led cooperative security. Through its norm-building exercise, to a considerable extent, ASEAN has advanced its interests. I address ASEAN’s interests in terms of the following three points: its relations with China, its autonomy vis-à-vis the US, and its centrality in Asia-Pacific regionalism. ..PAT.-Conference Proceeding [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]