The historic Sunnylands "special" summit held Feb. 15 and 16 between U.S. President Barack Obama and the leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations produced the Sunnylands Principles. According to the preamble they "will guide our (U.S.-ASEAN) cooperation going forward." The principles repeated many oft stated general pledges and platitudes but also broke new ground by the U.S. publicly agreeing to some rather lofty ASEAN goals. These include a commitment to adhere to the ASEAN Charter, and to ASEAN centrality and ASEAN-led mechanisms for the evolving regional architecture.
However, for some of the principles, the gap between their realization and current reality is huge. Indeed, it may be that some of the ASEAN leaders do not realize what they have agreed to — or the U.S. interpretation thereof. Or maybe they do — and have a different interpretation of their meaning or do not intend to strive to reach them during their tenure.
Let's look at some examples like the commitments to "democracy" and to "freedom of navigation."