Asean and the new world disorder

THE buzzword among think tanks on global strategy in the West is “World Disorder”. This follows, particularly, Donald Trump’s victory last November in the United States Presidential election – he will be inaugurated on Jan 20 – but also the British Brexit vote in June and anxiety over the possible triumph of populist right-wing parties, in France especially, this year.

There is a common opposition in these developments to the global and local liberal order, to free trade and movement of peoples, and to the political value system that has characterised the West and, tangentially, the rest of the world.