• The Southeast Asian review
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.95-129
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• 2017

This study surveys and reviews political change, economic performance, and regional cooperation that were carried out in 2016 by Southeast Asian countries and ASEAN. This paper reports that what has followed the inauguration of new governments in Myanmar, the Philippines, Vietnam, and Laos fails to live up to the expectation and optimism that arose in the aftermath of elections and party congresses that took place in the first half of the year. In other countries such as Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia, where authoritarian regimes are faced with strong oppositions, the prospects for democratic change worsened to a substantial degree, as schisms and internal strives complicated the opposition camp as a result of instigation and intervention by the authoritarian leaders and their followers. In stable political systems, both democratic and authoritarian, no significant changes that may entail serious political implications were noticed. In 2016, the national economy of almost each and every country continued its slow but steady recovery that had started in 2014 and grew by 5% on the average. For 2017 onward, however, the earlier optimism that it would grow at least as fast dimmed down as uncertainty about the world economy looms larger due to the unexpected win by Donald Trump as U.S. president and the expected 'hard landing' of the Chinese economy around 2018. ASEAN declared the launch of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) only one day before the New Year, but its track record looked already bad and unpromising by the end of 2016. ASEAN leaders were tied up by their domestic politics and affairs too tightly to take time off to work seriously to observe the schedule as laid out in the AEC Blueprint 2025. Korea's relationship with Southeast Asian countries and ASEAN was "as good as it gets" in 2016 as ever but could become subject to tough review in the near future, if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is found out to have been implicated in the ongoing Choi Sun Sil scandal and if the opposition wins the next presidential election to be held by this year.