Daunting role in helming Asean

IT’S the beginning of another new year and a quarter of the way through the 21st century, in a world fraught with conflicts and tensions.

Seismic shifts are already being felt with Donald Trump’s return to the White House on Jan 20 as the 47th president of the United States.

Even as the world is moving away from a unipolar one led by the US and its Western allies towards a multipolar one, Trump’s second coming to the presidency is set to challenge the structure of the international order across many areas, including trade and existing political alliances.

And Malaysia, which helms the year-long chairmanship of Asean from today, faces the daunting challenges of navigating both global and regional rivalries.

As Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim highlighted in a column published by Project Syndicate on Dec 16, this region was a Cold War battleground, enmeshed in ideological confrontation when Asean was founded in 1967, in Bangkok.

“Today, South-East Asians find themselves once again poised on the edge of great-power rivalries,” he wrote.

Noting that the mission that defined Asean from the start – fostering peace, stability, and development – remained relevant, he said the bloc, now comprising 10 states with over 660 million people under varying political systems and economies, ranked among the world’s most dynamic of such groupings.

As global tensions intensify, Asean’s collaborative spirit has never been more crucial, he wrote, adding that the choice is stark: The bloc must move forward in unity or face the divisive forces gathering momentum across Asia and beyond.

Malaysia is advancing the Asean Community Vision 2045, a strategic long-term plan that aims to guide growth and prosperity over the next two decades.

“Inclusivity and Sustainability” is the theme of Asean 2025, which aspires to combine economic pragmatism with human-centred values.

It includes a pledge to create a rules-based regional order, one that not only safeguards prosperity but also enhances stability while steering through tensions between great powers.

Among the other aims is a commitment to end the strife in Myanmar, a test of Asean’s collective conscience to maintain its credibility.

Myanmar has been stricken by continuous violence since a junta ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February 2021. Since the coup, nearly 6,000 people have been killed, and over 21,000 remain in detention, according to United Nations officials.

Another significant move under Malaysia’s chairmanship would be the long-delayed admission of Timor-Leste as a full-fledged Asean member.

This would not only expand the bloc to cover the whole of South-East Asia but also provide the newest country in Asia a much-needed platform to pursue its development and strategic autonomy.

Although Anwar has stated that he wants Asean to retain its non-aligned status, diversify its strategic engagements, and not be drawn in any one direction among major powers, questions have already been asked about Malaysia’s and the bloc’s neutrality.

The perception is that Asean is tilting towards China and Russia, compared with the US, especially with the recent inclusion of Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand as partners of the Russia and China-led BRICS – acronym for the founding member countries Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

The other new partners with no voting rights are Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Uganda and Uzbekistan.

Some observers see this as a paradigm shift from a unipolar world order to a multipolar matrix where the days of US dollar hegemony dictating the world’s fate are numbered. And they warn that this could result in serious repercussions.

Trump has already threatened to impose 100% tariffs on Brazil, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Iran, Russia, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates.

“We require a commitment from these countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency, nor back any other currency to replace the mighty US dollar or they will face 100% tariffs, and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful US Economy,” Trump wrote in a social media post in November.Besides warning against a BRICS currency, Trump has also pledged to impose tariff increases of between 10% and 20% on all imports.

With China and the US being Asean’s top foreign trading and investment partners, Malaysia, as the chair of the bloc, cannot afford to alienate either of the big powers.

Another area where Malaysia has to tread carefully is the South China Sea dispute, where several Asean nations have overlapping claims.Asean and China signed a Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea in 2002, a watershed document to arbitrate the discordant claims of the states, against the backdrop of the geopolitical rivalry between China and the US.

The declaration was expected to result in a successor agreement – the Code of Conduct (COC) which was supposed to prevent further escalation of the dispute.

Defining the borders has been contentious and several obstacles to the COC remain after more than two decades.

On Malaysia’s foreign policy and economic priorities amid changing global dynamics, Anwar expressed the government’s readiness to engage with Trump’s administration, adding that it is important to maintain strong bilateral relations with the US.

He has been highlighting the importance of the US as Malaysia’s top investor, alongside other global powers, including China.

Recognising concerns about potential shifts in US-China relations under Trump, he said Malaysia would foster balanced relationships with global superpowers.

“President Trump is pragmatic and has strong business acumen. We must ensure that Malaysia continues to benefit from positive US engagement while maintaining regional stability.”

Media consultant M. Veera Pandiyan likes this quote by George Bernard Shaw: ‘Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.’ The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.