Abstract
Development gaps always exist, but not all gaps are impediments to integration among nations. The challenge for ASEAN’s integration is that the increasingly globalized world and current community-building process of ASEAN could turn the region into “the included” and “the non-included” unless ASEAN can find appropriate approaches to bridge in a sustainable manner the crucial development gaps among its members. Such a possibility would threaten the stability and coherence of ASEAN from within rather than from outside. The paper provides a “4-I” approach to the development gaps in ASEAN (Income, Infrastructure, Integration, and Institutional Gaps) in order to speculate possible outcomes and to draw some observations on what has to be prioritized in the community-building process. We consider focusing on regional institution-building and caring for the most vulnerable as the “new ASEAN way” of bridging the development gap and to move towards a sustainable ASEAN Community in the future.