Friday, March 29, 2024 | 18:07 WIB

2023 ASEAN: The focal point of the Asia-Pacific multilateral

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ASEAN
(Source: ASEAN2023.ID)

After the Cold War, ASEAN is in an untenable situation because to the confluence of the new crown plague, the Ukraine crisis, and the geopolitical game of the big powers. The robustness of ASEAN’s supply networks and the consistency of economic development have been significantly impacted by border closures, social disruptions, and recurring breakouts of the disease. 

The situation has gotten worse as a result of increases in US interest rates, worldwide inflation, and volatility in the price of food and energy. The instability of ASEAN’s solidarity and cooperation has been impacted by the dramatic changes in Myanmar’s political situation and ongoing civil unrest. These changes have also had an impact on the coordination of internal crises, the deterioration of Sino-US relations, the collapse of Russian-US relations, differences in stances in response to the Ukraine crisis, and the suspension or transfer of many international and regional forums. 

By 2022, ASEAN will have amply demonstrated its capacity for adaptability and will have used the pandemic’s changing trajectory to its advantage by taking preventative action. When given the opportunity to host the East Asia Cooperation Leaders’ Meeting, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Leaders’ Informal Meeting, and the Group of Twenty (G20) Summit, Cambodia, Thailand, and Indonesia each put forth slogans intended to revive the vitality of integration as well as to unite and promote ASEAN’s “central position,” which has once again been solidified by the desire for collaboration to further development, which has also shown a high level of interest. 

The foreign ministers of Indonesia, Vietnam, and Thailand released a joint statement in May of last year promising to collaborate with all partners and stakeholders to foster cooperation, support ASEAN’s “central status,” and uphold the legitimacy and significance of regional peace and stability; in November, the summits of the three ASEAN members successfully emphasized the “Asia-Pacific theme” of “openness, connectivity, and balance” and called for greater regional cooperation. the tendency for political and geopolitical games to dominate regional agenda. 

The ASEAN summit called for accelerating reforms in areas such as climate change adaptation, smart cities, energy transition, green growth, small, middle, and micro businesses, among others, in order to achieve the goal of a sustainable, comprehensive, and resilient ASEAN community beyond 2025. ASEAN has advanced the upgrading of several groupings of bilateral relations at the same time. It has formed parallel conversation relationships with India and the United States at the end of 2022 after striking an agreement with China on forming a comprehensive strategic cooperation at the end of 2021, underlining that it will work with major nations. boost collaboration in a number of areas, including digital economy, climate change, and marine security. Assuring that ASEAN remains a “meeting place” for different regional efforts and a “hot spot” for foreign investment is the goal of this set of measures. 

Indo-Pacific Strategy on ASEAN 

The Biden administration of the United States purposefully lowered its profile in the face of ASEAN’s independence, strengthened its work, and concentrated the layout of the United States in Southeast Asia on gaining the support of third parties in order to promote its “Indo-Pacific strategy” and strategic competition with China. Trying to “shape the strategic environment surrounding China” with Southeast Asia at the forefront. 

The first is to strengthen political ties and increase tactical cooperation. During the Trump administration, ASEAN embraced the American-proposed “Indo-Pacific” idea for its own purposes. By creating the “ASEAN Indo-Pacific Outlook,” it produced a docking window. The White House’s “Indo-Pacific Strategy” document, which was released in February 2022, included “empowering ASEAN and promoting ASEAN unity” in the action plan; the US-ASEAN Special Summit in May and the US-ASEAN Summit at the end of the year upgraded the relationship between the two sides to “Comprehensive strategic partnership,” and the proposed cooperation agenda is quite rich, covering a wide range of topics like the new crown epidemic, “economic connectivity,” maritime security, and climate change. 

The second is to introduce the concept of “integrated deterrence” to strengthen military containment of China by capitalizing on fears about the expansion of military might among some ASEAN countries. This concept focuses on the complementary impacts of conventional forces such as sea, air, and land as well as unconventional techniques such as cyberspace operations, mobilizing the forces of allies and partners, and developing an all-encompassing deterrent system in the military sense. The US has renewed and expanded its joint exercises with the Philippines in the South China Sea and is negotiating with the Philippines to grant the US military access to additional sites there. 

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