Great power competition is expected to only continue to increase frictions along geopolitical fault lines. Caught between China and the US, no other regional organization recognizes this more acutely than ASEAN. Concerns have been raised as to how the organization representing 650 million people is expected to navigate the tense waters of this strategic region as the frequency of crises becomes more recurrent.
Singapore Institute of International Affairs chairman Simon Tay (戴尚志), during his opening address for the 15th ASEAN & Asia Forum, said that the world was heading into a “concrisis,” a convergence of crises and global issues.
VISION
The concept of “ASEAN centrality” has been championed by the organization to maintain cohesion and identify the interests that external powers have in the region. Holding this year’s chairmanship, Indonesia has expressed its vision of ASEAN as the “epicentrum of growth.” Jakarta aims to “strengthen economic recovery and make Southeast Asia the world’s engine of sustainable growth.”
However, climate change, inequality and the breakdown of multilateralism pose existential and persistent challenges to the region.
“ASEAN centrality is not a panacea,” ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn said, but it is something that can be used to help deal with current and upcoming challenges. Kao said that ASEAN cannot afford to take sides or pay lip service to the great powers.
CRISIS MANAGEMENT
The problem remains that external powers might misunderstand the interests of ASEAN states. Former Vietnamese deputy minister of foreign affairs and former ambassador to the US Pham Quang Vinh said that when approached by Washington to join the Administration of US President Joe Biden’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity, the Vietnamese government was initially reluctant, as it was concerned about how China would react toward it.
In the past years, ASEAN has been tested internally and externally. The 2021 military coup in Myanmar has revealed the organization’s limitations in resolving the crisis, as “non-interference” is a fundamental principle of the organization. China’s growing influence in member states such as Cambodia also weakened ASEAN’s solidarity when the organization failed to issue a joint statement on the South China Sea when Phnom Penh refused to mention the issue.
DIALOGUE
Despite the challenges that Southeast Asian nations face, ASEAN continues to matter as it remains the key platform for regional cooperation. At the recent 56th ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Jakarta, the organization’s 11 key dialogue partners, including the US, China and Russia, were in attendance.
That states locked in confrontation could congregate under ASEAN’s auspices demonstrates the organization’s significance at a time when the prospect of engagement between belligerent great powers continues to fade.
Until a new equilibrium in international politics is achieved and solutions to our collective existential threats are found, crisis is expected to continue to define the decades ahead of us.
In the forum’s final keynote speech, Singaporean Minister of Health Ong Ye Kung (王乙康) gave his definition of crises: “They are painful and destructive, but they pass.”
Nigel Li is a specialist on Eurasia and Russian foreign policy. He reports from Singapore.
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
If you had a vision of the future where China did not dominate the global car industry, you can kiss those dreams goodbye. That is because US President Donald Trump’s promised 25 percent tariff on auto imports takes an ax to the only bits of the emerging electric vehicle (EV) supply chain that are not already dominated by Beijing. The biggest losers when the levies take effect this week would be Japan and South Korea. They account for one-third of the cars imported into the US, and as much as two-thirds of those imported from outside North America. (Mexico and Canada, while
The military is conducting its annual Han Kuang exercises in phases. The minister of national defense recently said that this year’s scenarios would simulate defending the nation against possible actions the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) might take in an invasion of Taiwan, making the threat of a speculated Chinese invasion in 2027 a heated agenda item again. That year, also referred to as the “Davidson window,” is named after then-US Indo-Pacific Command Admiral Philip Davidson, who in 2021 warned that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had instructed the PLA to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. Xi in 2017
RSS