ASEAN-4 in the Process of Regional Integration: Russian Assessments

The chapter analyses the process of integration of Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia (CLMV) in ASEAN from the historical, political, and structurally economic perspectives. The authors focus on the institutional features of multi-speed integration in the context of regional integration in Southeast Asia. Enlargement of the 1990s, which resulted in the inclusion of all Southeast Asian countries in ASEAN became a success story and helped to overcome the ideological cleavages of the Cold War period. For the CLVM group joining the regional integration processes helped to upgrade their socioeconomic indicators and join the transnational production chains thus getting an additional impulse for their economic growth. However quarter a century later it became evident that along with the positive results of the enlargement new challenges have emerged.