WITH the conclusion of the 44th and 45th Asean Summits in Vientiane, the stage is set for Malaysia to prepare for its chairmanship of the regional organisation in 2025. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s remarks at the summits on building an inclusive and sustainable future for the region are indicative of our focus as chair.
It is a natural segue from the theme on connectivity and resilience set by Laos, that, as Asean’s smallest member, has commendably maintained a steady hand on the regional organisation as the region continues to recover from the long-term effects of the pandemic, and ongoing global disruptions caused by assorted conflicts.
As was our last turn at the helm nine years ago, the next year will be consequential in more ways than one.
For starters, the formal adoption of the Asean Community Vision 2045, which will guide Asean’s development for the next two decades, is scheduled to be ushered in under our watch. This is no mean feat, in as much as it is both a tremendous responsibility and honour for Malaysia to shepherd the process through.
It also signals not just the strategic vision of Asean but the phenomenal growth it has achieved across all three pillars of the Community over the last decade.
Then there is the prospect of Timor-Leste’s inclusion in 2025, a priority for both Malaysia and Timor-Leste, that will hopefully meet the recommended measures to facilitate formalisation as a full member.
All these will take place amid unprecedented regional tensions. This comes both from internal challenges like the Myanmar crisis and the South China Sea disputes, as well as the likelihood of major power rivalries worsening, thereby widening the existing fissures in the region and hobbling the inclusive multilateral mechanisms that Asean has painstakingly built.
It will be incumbent on Malaysia to marshal a cohesive front among member states and look for opportunities amid these challenges.
To be sure, the Asean of 2025 is vastly different from what it was in 2015. While Asean was the seventh largest economy in the world, with a value of some US$2.57 trillion back then, today, the bloc boasts a combined GDP of US$3.8 trillion, making it the world’s fifth largest economy.
Progress is also reflected in improved standards of living, such as access to safe drinking water and sanitation services. This trickles down to the lives of people where GDP per capita has grown across all Asean countries with an expanding middle class population, and accordingly booming consumer spending.
This signifies social mobility in member states, such as Vietnam and Indonesia, but a stagnant Gini coefficient means inequality will remain problematic for the regional organisation.
On the digital front, Southeast Asians are also increasingly connected to the world. Where access to the Internet hovered at 35 per cent in 2015, more than 72 per cent of Southeast Asia have online access today.
The Asean Digital Economic Framework Agreement for instance, will be the first in the world to facilitate cross-border digital trade. Furthermore, Asean is the only region operationalising norms promised at the United Nations in a checklist for each member state on responsible state behaviour in cyberspace.
Asean is certainly walking the talk on its commitments and our dialogue partners should take note. These developments, in addition to countless frameworks released in the past years, create baselines for cohesion while member states pursue various partnerships.
Broadly speaking, revitalising Asean mechanisms, mainly the Asean Regional Forum and the East Asia Summit to make them relevant to challenges of the day remains a pressing priority.
Streamlining the necessary tools and frameworks to focus on tangible deliverables and maximising operability and utility should be a key objective. Asean mechanisms must “reclaim its convening power” as Anwar stressed at the 37th Asia-Pacific Roundtable, earlier this year.
Asean must also be about cohesion, not just centrality, and injecting some energy, shared foresight and fresh perspectives into the thrusts of Asean mechanisms will bring member states closer, fostering mutual trust. This is imperative to manage and navigate the nascent but present polarisation among some member states due to external and internal tensions.
The frank nature of discussions on political and security concerns at these summits has shown that there is a limit to what economic cooperation can achieve.
Keeping the Asean house in order must see the organisation consciously prepare for greater inter-regional cooperation and encourage a more empowered and connected Global South — an important step towards a proactive Asean in the emerging multi-polar world order.
An institutionally strengthened Asean with a vision for sustainable cooperation mechanisms will encourage the delivery of public goods and lead in addressing global challenges collectively.
In any event, as Anwar put it at the handing over ceremony, Asean will be “unflinching in safeguarding Southeast Asia as a peaceful, stable and prosperous region” adding that in fortifying the region internally, “we will continue to explore and broaden our economic partnerships beyond our borders”, citing in particular the convening of the Asean-Gulf Cooperation Council + China Summit set for 2025 to achieve exactly this.
In recent years, there has been valuable engagement between Asean and other entities as well including the Pacific Islands Forum, the Indian Ocean Rim Association and even the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral, Economic and Technical Cooperation. This sets a good precedence for greater inter-regional cooperation with other organisations like the African Union and G20, where Malaysia has been invited as a “guest country” to the Leaders’ Summit in Rio de Janeiro next month.
With a visibly proactive and internationalist head of government in the person of Anwar, Malaysia’s chairmanship next year is poised to not only elevate an active Asean in the ever-evolving regional dynamics but also strengthen and equip it in the long run to be ever “responsive and fit for purpose”, while having a real say in the geopolitics of the day.
This article first appeared in New Straits Times, 12 October 2024
