Long S. Le's norms, values and moral for South East Asia

Comments on Long S. Le “The values dimension of Southeast Asian development and the rise of China”, 22/12/2010, http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2010/12/22/the-values-dimension-of-southeast-asian-development-and-the-rise-of-china/comment-page-1/#comment-354351

I tried to understand what Le meant by values, but may have got half of what he really meant.

He might mean democratic norms and values, as he states in his last paragraph, or his ‘moral dimension’ along economic development.

However, I seem to have noticed Le's difficulties in making his argument of values of ASEAN, given that he mentioned Vietnam, Los, Cambodia and Myanmar, which are all members of ASEAN or South East Asia. He seemed to be painstaking! On that front, he would depend on a lot of thing to happen before his argument can be realised. But whether they will happen as Le wishes is completely out his control and he may have to only wish.

Maybe, in Le's view of the world or history, there is or should be only one way of moral dimension or democratic norms and values, that is, whatever he has got in his mind.

Le talked about the evolution of something along economic development, presumably based on what has existed by now, but what about any possible evolution of those norms, values and morals in the future that may generate what he simply has not embedded in analytic framework?

Does Le believe that the current system will be unchanged forever in the future, without any possibility of evolution, not to mention potential revolution?

Is that what Le’s norms, values and moral about?

PS: It appears Le has very strong moral, values and norms that are very much against China, the rise of China and the so called Beijing consensus irrespective whether it exists or not, if one reads the meaning of his article. He is either vaguely or not so vaguely in the mode of containing China and the rise of China.