An EU-style regional economic bloc is about to emerge. ASEAN leaders declared the establishment of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) on Sunday, an integrated market envisaging a free flow of goods, capital and labor within the 10-country grouping.

ASEAN leaders pledged to work toward a community that is "politically cohesive, economically integrated and socially responsible," an outlook they reaffirmed on Sunday. Economic integration is believed to be the first step toward the future.

The single market will incorporate a large population of 620 million with a combined GDP of $2.4 trillion. One of the significant signals the AEC has sent to the outside is that it will give many major economies access to its huge market, especially considering its enormous requirement for infrastructure estimated at $8 trillion by 2020.

A debate has been raised about how intense the rivalry will be among major economies when the AEC is ready to open to multiple players. Some even say the competition has already begun. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced Saturday that Japan will offer easier loans for emerging ASEAN states. He pledged $10 billion in loans for infrastructure projects in other Asian countries in the next five years, and analysts believe it is a move to counter Beijing's growing leverage in this region.

A geopolitical mind-set to observe economic cooperation does not always reflect the whole picture. The same discourse has been used to scrutinize how the newly founded Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will pose a challenge to the long-established Asian Development Bank (ADB), or how the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is set to rival the US-initiated Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The AEC is a market large enough for multiple players to play a mutually beneficial role in cooperation, although competition remains among individual companies. The need for investments to boost regional infrastructure is far bigger than the fund provided by the AIIB and ADB combined. The RCEP and TPP primarily aim at enhancing the level of regional cooperation, instead of being designed to counter each other.

ASEAN's integration across a wider spectrum is an opportunity for both ASEAN and major external economies.

ASEAN needs investment from outside to address a lot of barriers hindering its economic and social development, and major economies need ASEAN, a fast-growing  emerging market, as an impetus to boost their own economies. In this case, the focus should be put on how to devise cooperative mechanisms to benefit all sides instead of manufacturing causes to hype up competition with ulterior motives.