Asean centrality is more than its summit guest list
Amid global turmoil, the bloc’s real work continues for regional integration and peace
IF THE Asean Summit in Kuala Lumpur was a weekend party, almost everyone came, hands were shaken, and speeches delivered. Asean – and host Malaysia in the rotating role of chairman – has reason to claim success.
Top leaders from China, Japan, Russia and even Brazil were present, but perhaps most notable was US President Donald Trump. With his jig upon arrival, this met the first requirement for diplomacy: turning up. It also shows Asean’s convening power.
Yet there remain deeper questions about what makes for success.
The answer must go beyond past achievements, or that most partner governments consistently reaffirm support and even seek to upgrade ties with the group. Given the global turmoil and Sino-American rivalry, there is increased scrutiny about what Asean can or cannot do.
This is the crux of the group’s so-called “centrality”, or lack thereof. So how and what did Asean do at the summit, really?
Setting realistic benchmarks
Benchmarks for Asean centrality should be realistic and avoid over-reach. In opening the summit, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim as chairman emphasised the need to show relevance, resilience and responsiveness. Consider the summit in this context.
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Dialogues were responsive to almost all key issues in the region, and helped maintain or even build momentum.
In Sino-American trade and technology tensions, officials held talks in KL to prepare the path for the summit between the two giants. The core bilateral issues must of course be left to the final Trump-Xi meeting. But Asean provided more than the venue, snacks and tea.
The US inked rare-earth deals with Malaysia and Thailand on the summit’s sidelines, following up a similar agreement with Australia. For China, its free trade agreement with Asean was upgraded and Premier Li Qiang pitched his country as an alternative to protectionism.
These show how Asean provided contingencies for each of the great powers.
The Cambodia-Thailand agreement is a second and different example of Asean at work. Trump must be credited for intervening to bring the two parties to the table – albeit by the unusual threat of punishment by tariffs. At the summit, he also claimed more credit for a “peace accord”.
That is a Trump overstatement. Asean knows better, and while Anwar also witnessed the Cambodia-Thailand signing, he made less of a show about it.
The reality is only a first step was agreed – to remove heavy weapons from the contested border area and to release captives. The settlement of this longstanding territorial dispute and the demarcation of the lengthy border must be addressed. So must the shelter and resettlement of thousands of refugees and the easing of nationalistic bad blood between citizens.
It will take time and effort to resume legal cross-border trade for both local traders and multinational supply chains, and to clamp down on scam centres and other illicit activities.
Few expect that the Trump administration will shoulder those larger and longer-term efforts. The responsibility lies with the two countries bilaterally, while Asean supports and nudges progress towards enduring peace.
Intra-Asean centrality
Other issues to which Trump gave scant attention are similar: The post-coup situation in Myanmar, where the generals plan an election even when parts of the country are outside their effective control. The tensions in the South China Sea and incidents between the Philippines and China.
Timor-Leste joining as the 11th member of Asean, with hopes that can only be met if there are real efforts to assist and integrate it fully.
This is not to say that the US should take charge and solve these challenges for the region, or that it can. These issues instead point to the need for Asean to step up and shoulder this hard and ongoing work, even when global media attention has moved on, in the wake of US Air Force One.
With the US chasing quick wins and headlines, someone has to work stolidly in the background on near intractable issues.
Another aspect of Asean’s centrality is the primary importance of the group to its own members.
Critics of Asean centrality point out that individual members act on their own to have free trade and economic agreements with non-Asean countries.
They also note that Indonesia has joined Brics, and that others have expressed interest to do so.
This misunderstands how sovereign states act. Especially in a multipolar and shifting world, it is logical that countries seek to diversify their relationships to other groups beyond Asean.
Rather than Asean feeling abandoned, the only viable response is for Asean to step up to deliver benefits to its members. There is no room for smug assumptions and self-satisfaction in Asean.
At the summit, this collective action and will was evident. Asean worked together to negotiate and upgrade its trade pact with China and should, as a group, also discuss the dangers of surging Chinese exports.
Centrality was evidenced in renewed efforts to move ahead to make intra-regional supply chains seamless, bring down the few remaining tariffs and address non-tariff barriers to trade.
As Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong summed up at the summit’s close, Asean leaders recognise more clearly than ever the need to be more integrated and united.
Centrality in a shifting world
Asean began in a volatile and violent world in 1967. It was only during the relatively stable and benign post-Cold War years that Asean “centrality” grew, with multilateral dialogues and summits that reached across the region.
The current conditions have changed, and Asean cannot assume its role will automatically continue.
The US has been reinforcing alliances – most recently with Australia and Japan, and the latter’s new Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. This builds on efforts from the Biden years, with Aukus and the Quad.
For China, while giving attention to Asean, within the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Beijing is the de facto leader.
Asean does not need to compete with these groupings, and should not. It instead needs to differentiate. Asean centrality is characterised by the principle of inclusion, whereas the US alliances and China-centred groups are exclusive.
Within the group, too, Asean emphasises consensus and is committed to working together as sovereign equals. It is more rules-based, rather than centreing around a single powerful country.
Inclusive dialogue, cooperation and open regionalism are key precepts for Asean. In the current era of heightened competition and contestation, with calls for closing borders and rising protectionism and attacks on the rules-based order, this may seem old-fashioned and slow. Attention may shift elsewhere.
But this will continue to be Asean’s essence and can provide foundations for prospects of understanding, peace and progress for the wider region.
The writer is chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA). The SIIA organises the Asean Think Tank Summit with a network of policy institutes and the support of the Asean secretariat.
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