Analysis Of The Relationship Between Laos And ASEAN

This paper focuses on the relationship between Laos and ASEAN. Laos has been the member state of ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) for fourteen years. The development of regional economy need Laos, which holds the importance of international strategy, meanwhile, the economic and social development and reform of Laos is related with ASEAN. Considering the importance of the relations between Laos and ASEAN, I intend to analyze systematically the relations between Laos and ASEAN, as well as the history, current and future of the relationship with a wholesome and scientific perspective.There are three parts in my article. Firstly, it refers to the outline of the evolution of the relationship, which contains three periods. More specifically, the opposition and indifference phase, engagement and peaceful coexistence, integration and all-around cooperation. Through the history context, I obtain that Laos has changed its policy, from the closure to the openness, adopting the opening-door policy and the wholesome engagement policy since 1980s. When it refers to the relations between Laos and ASEAN, Laos engages and coexists peaceful with ASEAN compared with the former which is indifferent and oppose. Also ASEAN actively and positively welcome Laos join it and play a significant role in ASEAN. Laos became the official member state of ASEAN in 1997 and actively participated in ASEAN affairs, strengthen the communication and cooperation with other ASEAN member states.The second part mainly analyzes the interest motivation in the process of interaction between Laos and ASEAN, which refers to the benefits from the adjustment of two actors, not only the Laos but also ASEAN. Furthermore, with the improvement of the relationship with ASEAN, Laos need the investment and technology from ASEAN in the process of industrialization, and the political stage of ASEAN. After joining in ASEAN, the Laos achieved great success in economy, politics and foreign affairs, thereby developing significantly in sphere of social economy. Meanwhile, the ASEAN obtain great achievement through the improvement of relationship with Laos, in accordance with the strategy of ASEAN Enlargement, promote the development of ASEAN regional integration.The third part refers to the influence factors of future relationship between Laos and ASEAN, which mainly maintains the positive and negative dimension. On the one hand, the positive influence includes the cooperation willingness, political consideration and the special relationship with Vietnam. On the other hand, the negative influence contains that the discrepancy of the social political system and the ideology, the difficulty of security cooperation and economy cooperation, major powers intervention.Based on the systematical analysis, we obtain that there are plenty of common interests as well as the divergences, which not only guarantees the development of relationship between Laos and ASEAN, but also takes into account of the posture and policy towards the regional integration in the context of globalization and integration.