CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- As long as regional cooperation develops in various parts of the world, it is only natural that some concerns are voiced from time to time, especially about the composition of these groupings.
Leaving aside the larger ones -- for instance, APEC (the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum), where extensive membership appears to somehow defeat the original caveat -- we would rather dwell on some smaller ones who aim at expansion.
Critics of ASEAN in particular, apart from a wider skepticism over the present functioning of the organization, concentrate their fire on the wisdom -- or rather the lack of it -- of accepting "liabilities" like Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam.