It was a giddying few days at the Southeast Asian summit in Cebu as leaders, after years of dithering, concluded they would be better off forging a rules-bound community. It came not a moment too soon either, because economic integration is their only hope for staving off dominance by China.
Leaders of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations gave officials approval to prepare a draft charter that will authorise binding policies, rules, penalties and possibly replace decision-making by consensus with majority voting.
Without these foundations, the Asean Economic Community - allowing goods, services and investment to flow freely from 2015, replacing low-tariff regimes - stands a slim chance of working smoothly.
Euphoria greeted the decision: it has been 31 years since a charter was first suggested. This, however, seemed to overlook the tough negotiations still to be faced in turning an outline into a draft for the next summit in November.
Whether a region synonymous with corruption, muddled laws and rigid sovereignty can produce an effective charter and prepare mechanisms to resolve trade disputes across borders is questionable. It is certainly ambitious.
Tricky technical issues will pale beside political ones, such as majority voting on binding policy decisions. Large states in the European Union, for example, hold two votes; smaller members one. Giving Brunei, with 250,000 people, and Indonesia with a population of 230 million, one vote each is neither credible nor fair.
In any case, majority voting might be more than Myanmar's generals can stomach. Myanmar could face censure, even expulsion, over the junta's broken promises to restore democracy and respect human rights, as well as fears about the consequences of Myanmar's actions for Asean relations with the US and the European Union. Writing an effective charter, rather than the usual Asean fudge, is going to be a severe test. But it is one that Asean can avoid no longer in the face of China scaling ever greater heights of power.