Perhaps we should congratulate Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. His guests were not sieged by a sea of red-shirts and did not have to make hurried escapes in choppers this time!

Instead, Abhisit and his guests could comfortably pose for a family photo in ruby-coloured, legendary Thai silk.

Abhisit had mobilised the 18,000-strong military police, and made assurances in subdued tone that they would be safe, before leaders from 16 regional countries agreed to meet in his country.

Nothing beats this photo in illustrating the achievement of the summit.

As for the rest, nothing came really special save a few MOUs. Most regional media carried this group photo, some scanty news coverage here and there, and nothing else.

If not for this weird-looking traditional Thai costume, not many would have figured out what ASEAN summit it was.

The ten ASEAN member states used to have high-flying ambitions, setting their sight on a EU-like community.

Unfortunately, Southeast Asians are no Europeans. The sultry tropical heat has baked the temperaments of people in this part of the world: they fail to make profound thinking or let their cultures precipitate, let alone develop some decent humanistic spirit.

The free trade agreement that has been talked over and again remains very much stuck in the interests of individual countries. Thailand and the Philippines have been locked in an impasse over rice imports, while Malaysia stagnates from protective auto policies.

There exists a vast disparity in their economic policies and levels of development. Within the region are Singapore boasting a per capita income on par with the West, as well as Myanmar and Laos on almost equal levels of development with starving African states. We have highly liberal countries like Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines on the one hand, and Indochinese states which trample civil freedom on the other.

As if that is not enough, cross-border relationhips have never been built upon the foundation of mutual trust. Thailand and Cambodia are occasionally at loggerheads over some cultural legacy, while Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore constantly locked in secretive tussles. Even a seemingly insignificant junta government in Myanmar could create havoc in the regional grouping.

This, coupled with disputes over the sovereignty of Spratly Islands, makes any apparent harmony and concord no more than skin-deep.

To get a single economic community up and running by 2015, when funds, goods and services will move across borders freely, looks remotely possible at least for now.

Moreover, the United States, China and Japan are all the more ready to flex their muscles and are least willing to see the emergence of a unified ASEAN.

To emulate the European Union, without the intellectual maturity and intrinsic merits of the Europeans, we are at best a cheap imitation! (By TAY TIAN YAN/Translated by DOMINIC LOH/Sin Chew Daily)