Analysis State of Play of the ARF@25 Termsak Chalermpalanupap takes stock of the achievements and limitations of the ARF. A s the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, it is time to look back on the past quarter century of this unique regional process initiated by ASEAN in 1993. The ARF was aimed at strengthening peace and security in Southeast Asia. Another important objective was, and still is, to encourage the US to continue its engagement with ASEAN and support for ASEAN member states in national development and security. This was especially pressing in the early 1990s when the US closed down its military bases in Clark and Subic Bay in the Philippines while China began to rise as a new but as yet unpredictable regional power. In parallel with the imperative to keep the US in the region, the ARF also aimed to engage China and Russia in multilateral dialogue on regional security issues with a hope to integrate them as constructive players in the regional security architecture. China was at first reluctant but quickly learned to advance its positions and interests in the ARF and other ASEAN-led multilateral processes. Russia, on the other hand, has been less active since its key security concerns remain with Europe and the Middle East. The ARF has also benefited ASEAN in the sense that it has enhanced ASEAN’s importance and credibility as the most acceptable or the least objectionable convener of multilateral processes for dialogue and cooperation on regional issues. Instead of trying to keep out major external powers from Southeast Asia, ASEAN turned to engage all of them in the ARF. With 27 participants, the ARF has become a significant part of the regional security architecture that has attracted worldwide attention. France, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Turkey and Iran have shown interest to join the forum. However, the ARF membership moratorium has been in place since the admission of Sri Lanka in 2007. One notable participant in the ARF is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), which joined in 2000. President Moon Jae-in of the Republic of Korea noted in his Singapore Lecture on 13 July 2018 that the ARF represented a “vital channel” for the DPRK to communicate with the world community. Indeed, the ARF offers the unique diplomatic THE ASEAN REGIONAL FORUM MEMBERSHIP ASEAN Member States: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam 6 — ISSUE 5/2018 ASEAN Dialogue Partners: Australia, Canada, China, the European Union, India, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Russia and the United States Others: Papua New Guinea, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Mongolia, Pakistan, TimorLeste, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka