ASEAN, Association of South East Asian Nations, formed in 1967, currently has six member countries: Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Initially, it was formed mainly for political and economical reasons: to contain the spread of communism from North Viet Nam which was launching an anti-American war with considerable success. With the end of the Cold War, and the changing political landscape of the region, ASEAN is now more concerned with economic cooperations than with ideological or security issues. In the last decade, greater effort was made to promote cultural exchanges, with numerous projects devised and implemented by the Committee on Culture and Information (COCI), with resources coming from ASEAN Cultural Fund.
