CEMENTING ASEAN’S BARGAINING RESERVOIR
While it’s true that the GDP distance of the US and China will doubtless enlarge in comparison with the subsequent main energy, it doesn’t imply that smaller nations don’t have any bargaining energy. International locations like Malaysia, Brazil, Turkey, Mexico, Indonesia and Botswana are rising upper-middle-income nations with rising bargaining energy and affect.
The central thought right here is to make use of financial energy, cemented in pragmatism and lodging, as ASEAN’s bargaining reservoir to demand for continued neutrality and resistance towards selecting sides.
This method, nevertheless, requires a departure from a passive non-alignment stance to 1 that’s cautious, thought of, and proactive neutrality. It’s, due to this fact, opportune for ASEAN to contemplate deepening financial integration, each internally and externally with different blocs.
This might take a couple of kinds, all of that are financial in nature and never searching for political integration much like the EU mannequin. Probably the most important of those is the ASEAN Power Grid, which goals to combine the facility methods of member states and which has widely-accepted advantages (decarbonisation, creating as much as 9,000 jobs yearly). Resolving the Laos-Thailand-Malaysia-Singapore pilot implementation snag is precedence, as this could construct regional-level planning talents. With this, discussions about grid infrastructure financing may also observe, serving as a take a look at for region-wide financing constructions.
One other associated substantive financial integration is regional infrastructure enhancement, akin to highways and railways, which might be supported by regional funding mechanisms. To really rework ASEAN from a disparate conglomerate of various entities to a 650-million market, labour mobility might function as a high financial merchandise. This might be centered on high-skilled abilities reasonably than a wholesale free motion, which meets the stage of growth of most member states.
On high of that, ASEAN might be used as a platform for inter-regional cooperation with different giant financial blocs, such because the BRICS, US, China, EU, MERCOSUR, African Union, and the Gulf Cooperation Council. This might translate to extra significant broad-base and/or sectoral free commerce agreements or motion plans with funding zones, and ASEAN would function a chief advocate for commerce on the planet.
Understandably, critics might argue that ASEAN has not been an efficient organisation exactly because of its non-interference method, the place member states might ignore regional pressures and proceed with business-as-usual. Nevertheless, there are a couple of circumstances that favour historic strikes to combine.
One, alignment of leaders’ pursuits. Main member states’ leaders are prioritising financial progress over different insurance policies, as nations are competing to catch up or transfer up the worth chain. Know-how and renewables have additionally featured prominently in member states’ leaders’ agenda. As most leaders within the largest member states have been appointed lower than 5 years in the past, there’s additionally an eagerness to show themselves by a thriving financial and funding end result.
Second, commerce protectionism is a worsening menace. Regional economies are likely to coalesce when exterior environments are disorderly, not to mention a trade-heavy area that has seen the benefits of an open financial system like ASEAN. Such openness to regional integration might not be obtained as readily below peacetime.
Third, Malaysia Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s legitimacy of chairmanship in 2025. Not solely is Anwar’s storied political historical past and worldwide diplomacy a standout, however he represents a relatable curiosity level, as Malaysia was the primary ASEAN chief to determine relations with China in 1974 (signalling openness to commerce), and has a direct stake within the South China Sea dispute. As 2025 falls on the midterm of his prime ministership, Anwar additionally has the chance to undertake a legacy-building steer by prioritising substantive integration not beforehand succeeded.
ASEAN’s comeback story has validated its pragmatic method that has wider classes in in the present day’s world. The subsequent decade calls for better thought and proactivity, in order that ASEAN can develop into like the various aspects of a gemstone, every splitting in numerous methods – however coalescing in the identical gentle.
James Chai is a political analyst, columnist and the writer of Sang Kancil (Penguin Random Home).
