Does the Association of Southeast Asian Nations matter? Marty Nartelegawa, Indonesia’s former foreign minister, is the latest to ask the question in his new book Does Asean Matter? A View From Within, writes David G. Rose for South China Morning Post. Marty, who also served as Indonesia’s permanent representative to the United Nations from 2007 to 2009, said that the question in the book’s title came from a single standpoint only – his own perspective as a former foreign minister – and was not an expression of be-all and end-all wisdom. In an interview with ABC, Natalegawa said ASEAN must speak up about the creeping authoritarianism in Cambodia and the Philippines, and the challenge China poses in the South China Sea.