Indeed, after coming under some criticism for the lack of effort and coordination during Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines, this was the chance for Asean to seek redress and to mute criticism.

On the contrary, the lack of joint effort by the region’s countries in the search for the missing airliner , as opposed to the involvement of individual Asean states on a bilateral basis , is noticeable. Is it time for Asean as a group to step up to support the multinational search drive?

… Dylan Loh Ming Hui is a research analyst with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University.