As foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations start their annual meeting in Manila today, their organization is facing a number of challenges. The most formidable is the economic crisis battering the region.

It used to be said that if economics went wrong in Southeast Asia, social and political instability would follow. This has already happened in Indonesia, the world's fourthmost populous nation and a key member of ASEAN. Political instability could spread if the crisis is prolonged, with the danger of exploitation by extremist elements.

Greater instability in domestic politics causes uncertainty, coloring the perceptions of foreign investors and financial markets, which tend not to differentiate among the individual countries of Southeast Asia.

The region's loss of international credibility is not entirely fair. Amid the publicity given to crony capitalism and corruption, it is easy to forget the achievements of ASEAN. Over the past thirty years it has kept the peace among its members, enabling them to concentrate on economic and social development. In so doing, ASEAN helped transform Southeast Asia — once seen as the Balkans of Asia — from a region of poverty and almost endemic instability to one of relative peace and plenty.

This could not have happened without the support of the United States. But without the pragmatic, moderate and basically pro-Western leadership of the five founding members of ASEAN — Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand — Southeast Asia would have been a different and more troubled place.

ASEAN's reputation as a forward-looking organization of developing states was enhanced by its decision to establish the ASEAN Free Trade Area by 2003 and its role in nurturing Asia-Pacific regionalism, especially the ASEAN Regional Forum on security.

But ASEAN's achievements may be threatened if the region does not recover soon from the depression in Indonesia and worsening recessions in a number of other member states. The problem is how to implement far-reaching and potentially painful reforms amid deepening recession and growing social discontent — and when there is no indication how long the pain will have to be borne before recovery starts.