Nguyen Duy Kui, Ph. D. Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences President of the National Center for Social and Humanitarian Sciences of Vietnam Established 32 years ago, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has made a great contribution to peace, friendship and cooperation among the countries of the region. Under the influence of ASEAN, States that had not previously had close relations and were even hostile to each other until the mid-1960s gradually became more friendly to each other and made joint efforts to counter the challenges that these States faced both within and outside the region. So, how was this regional cooperation born? What are its features in comparison with regional cooperation in other parts of the world, and especially with regional cooperation in Western Europe? The process of developing regional cooperation in South-East Asia After gaining national independence, the young States of Southeast Asia had to preserve national independence, national sovereignty and find ways to quickly bring their countries out of poverty and backwardness and gradually reach the level of development of the advanced countries of the world. This was not an easy task. After all, the states of Southeast Asia are countries with small and medium-sized territories, economically backward and having a vague idea of the world around them. At the same time, it is a region with an important strategic position and rich mineral resources. In order to exist and develop, the leaders of the newly independent countries of this region have come to understand that, page 123 that the Southeast Asian countries should act together and help each other. This circumstance required the development of a concept of regional cooperation of the countries of South-East Asia in the interests of its development, understood as " a common will and hope embodied in the union and cooperation between countries close to each other in geographical location, ethnic composition, langu ... Read more