OP ED-OPINION | ACADEMIA: Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship is off to a disappointing start
Expectations to fulfill: Malaysia’s Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim listens to former Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans speak during an event at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, on March 7, 2024. (AFP/David Gray)
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Excessive focus on Malaysian PM Anwar Ibrahim and the lack of a coherent early list of goals present problems.
Bridget Welsh
T here has been considerable hype around Malaysia taking over the chairmanship of Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN this year, with pundits focusing on the leadership and vision of Anwar Ibrahim, the country’s prime minister. Early indications suggest that these expectations of Malaysia as 2025 leader of ASEAN may be hard to fulfill. One problem is that Malaysia’s chairmanship risks the potential of being too much about Anwar, and not enough about ASEAN. For example, Anwar’s personal choice of an ally, former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, as an ASEAN adviser did not go down well in a politically divided Thailand. Thaksin’s interventions around the Myanmar crisis have not helped. Another problem is the lack of a viable plan to meet expectations, especially as attention will focus on the pressure points facing ASEAN.
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This became apparent during the first meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers in Langkawi last month.
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A joint statement released after the meeting was a long and unfocused laundry list of tired reaffirmations related to a wide range of issues from ASEAN’s role in regional security and economic cooperation to Israel’s actions in Gaza. The communiqué spoke to broad ambitions, but didn’t adequately highlight ASEAN’s priority action areas. Malaysia simultaneously seemed unprepared to engage the media on its plans as chair. If Malaysia does not create a roadmap for its goals for ASEAN in 2025, it risks wasting a vital opportunity to strengthen the Southeast Asian bloc at a critical period of uncertainty in global geopolitics and opens itself to criticism. Adjustments are needed. Here’s what Malaysia needs to do as ASEAN chair. First and foremost, the regional bloc needs to be prepared to respond to threats facing Southeast Asia’s economy. The specter of tariffs from the new Donald Trump administration in the United States has already unsettled many Southeast Asian nations. Additionally, many of these countries run high trade deficits with the US, which may have put them on a Trump watch list. ASEAN needs to maintain its regional centrality now more than ever, because current geopolitical conditions are liable to foster individualistic behavior by countries rather than cooperation.
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These conditions will require ASEAN chair Malaysia to focus on fostering multilateral trade and collectively ameliorating potential economic disruptions. Another urgent issue that needs Anwar’s attention is transnational crime. ASEAN has become the epicenter for a multibillion-dollar global scam economy. Southeast Asia appears to still be in denial about how serious this problem is and the reasons it needs to be dealt with urgently. ASEAN member-states Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos have become scam-running havens, even as criminal syndicates have victimized people through online pig butchering fraud and trafficked thousands through fake job offers. These scam operations have had a knock-on effect as they have begun to negatively impact tourism to Southeast Asia, especially from China. Social media is rife with Chinese citizens posting that they fear being abducted, especially if they visit Cambodia or Thailand. If ASEAN does not push back against transnational criminals now, the bloc will find it much harder to do so later. One only has to look at the power of the cartels in the Americas to see the consequences of a failure to act regionally. In Langkawi, Malaysia’s response to the civil strife in Myanmar was perhaps the most concerning indicator of its chairmanship potentially not living up to the hype. Malaysia’s leadership showed an inadequate understanding of the current conditions in Myanmar, where this week marks the fourth anniversary of the military coup that overthrew an elected government. To make matters worse, Myanmar has also been badly hit by the Trump administration’s halt of humanitarian assistance, which will exacerbate an already serious crisis. ASEAN’s joint statement after the Langkawi foreign ministers’ meeting called for “peace” and “inclusive elections” in Myanmar, belying realities on the ground. Recent chairs of ASEAN have strengthened engagement with the military junta, even as it has lost territory and power. Malaysia foreshadowed that it might do the same, when it reaffirmed the failed five-point consensus as its main reference of engagement. The move indicated a failure to acknowledge multiple sovereign stakes within Myanmar. ASEAN member-states’ governments have wrongly prioritized Myanmar’s military over other groups, notably the National Unity Government and ethnic armed groups that together control more than half the country. Malaysia needs to adopt a more inclusive Myanmar strategy and publicly acknowledge and engage all the major stakeholders. A failure to do so puts lives at risk, and Malaysia’s reputation as well. If there was promise in the Langkawi meeting it was related to Malaysia’s 2025 theme of “sustainability”. The year ahead offers potential for cooperation on carbon credits and the operationalization of the much-needed ASEAN Centre for Climate Change. Here, too, urgency is paramount as Southeast Asian nations continue to be highly vulnerable to damage from climate change. Malaysia’s leadership of ASEAN will be successful if it puts the interests of the region’s people above those of its leaders and sets clear priorities on pressing issues with viable plans to achieve them. — The writer is an independent researcher and honorary research associate at the Asia Research Institute of the University of Nottingham Malaysia and a senior associate fellow of The Habibie Center. The views expressed are personal.
Click to read: https://www.thejakartapost.com/opinion/2025/02/03/malaysias-asean-chairmanship-is-off-to-a-disappointing-start.html.
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Mon, February 3, 2025
