February 20, 2025
KUALA LUMPUR – Fear is pervasive in the international system, given that China, Russia and the United States, all of which exist in the upper tier of the hierarchy, have shown time and again they cannot be pushed around.
In the case of China, although Panama has withdrawn from the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), empirical records show that in effect it is a decision of no consequence at all. Italy, too, withdrew from the BRI under Prime Minister Lea Meloni in 2023. Yet, bilateral trade between China and Italy has improved.
Be that as it may, Panama was told, not least by US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, to comply with the dictates of President Donald Trump. As a country whose leader, Manuel Noriega, was abducted from Panama by US special forces in 1989, it is understandable why Panama does not want to go head-to-head in clashing with anyone in Washington, DC. Even Beijing would be sympathetic to Panama’s decision, which is why it has refrained from widely criticizing Panama’s withdrawal from the BRI.
Meanwhile, the US has spread fear among Canadians as Trump is keen on annexing Canada as the 51st state of the US. Outgoing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau affirmed recently that Trump is serious about his annexation given the many critical minerals that Canada possesses.
Amid all that is happening, whether it is the quest for territorial advantage or tactical gains, the dawn of Trump 2.0 seems to be the most unnerving geopolitical event. Beyond threatening tariffs on the likes of Canada, Mexico and China, the US appears bent on forcing all other allies, even those across the Atlantic, to conform to the wishes of the US.
There are reasons to believe that ASEAN is not impervious to the contagion of fear that spread from North America to the rest of the world. ASEAN as a collective polity has been extremely quiet on the US and China’s growing animus. In the future, ASEAN member states will feel more at ease knowing they haven’t offended the two, just as they would worry about the cohesion and centrality of ASEAN being compromised.
ASEAN has seen the worst aspects of American foreign policy before, whether this be the characterization of Southeast Asia as the “second front” in the war on terror after the US invaded Iraq for the second time in 2003.
The fact of the matter is that as much as any leader in ASEAN has any reason to be fearful of the repercussions from the US, the history of ASEAN is indeed based on fear too; in this case, the withdrawal of the US from Vietnam, which happened in 1975. Hence, when ASEAN was formed on Aug. 8, 1967, lurking in the minds of the founders was the expansionism of the communist ideology, not merely in Indo-China but breaking through Thailand to sweep down to Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines and Indonesia.
Rather than being gripped by fear, however, ASEAN convened its first summit in 1976 in Jakarta. This was consistent with Chapter 8 of the United Nations Charter, which encourages all regional organizations to solve their issues amicably, with or without the help of the UN Security Council, but also to assume more responsibility over the affairs of their own region.
To the degree ASEAN was afraid that Thailand, a frontline state against the expansionism of Vietnam, was not sufficiently reassured by its regional neighbors in ASEAN, the member states were willing to abide by the Kuantan Declaration of 1970 to provide Thailand with any means necessary to defend it against any sudden events that could upend its internal order.
On a larger scale, ASEAN also promised the creation of the Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) as a guiding concept to assure all member states that any country looking to join ASEAN would first have to believe and espouse these three values.
In more ways than one, this was also consistent with the Guam Doctrine of US president Richard Nixon in 1972, that each of the regions that were once tied up with the US’ security apparatus must learn to adjudicate on regional issues that affect them. One of the immediate results of the change in this external milieu was the establishment of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Jakarta in the mid-1970s.
The founding of the CSIS paved the way for the formation of more national think tanks modeled on the Helsinki Process of 1972-1975, which led to breakthroughs among Asia-Pacific think tanks in the following years, and the creation of a Track 2 network of the Council for Security and Cooperation in Asia-Pacific (CSCAP).
The CSCAP, in turn, seeded the idea of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1993, leading to its formation in 1994. To this date, the ARF remains the only foreign and security minister meeting in the Asia Pacific.
Of course, one of the hallmarks that set ASEAN very quickly apart was the collective defiance against Vietnam’s invasion of Cambodia in 1976. ASEAN’s efforts led by Australian foreign minister Gareth Evans and his Indonesian counterpart Ali Alatas did much to reject the basis of Vietnam’s invasion, ostensibly to stop killings perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge. Regardless of the motivation, no one in ASEAN can use force as an instrument of its foreign policy.
As ASEAN has been able to overcome many issues in the past, often by learning from the best practices of the West and itself, it stands to reason that ASEAN has the diplomatic depth to handle complex issues.
To prove its mettle as a resilient regional bloc that is poised to become the fourth-largest economy in the world behind China, the US and India by 2030, ASEAN does not have the option of cowering in fear. ASEAN has to learn how to transcend this insecurity by embracing artificial intelligence, automation, algorithms, augmented reality, big data analysis and an apps-driven economy, without which ASEAN risks the likelihood of becoming a moribund economy.
Fear of the unknown has to be removed swiftly to usher in a new era of sustainability and connectivity in all senses of the word.
The writer is a professor of ASEAN Studies at the International Islamic University of Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur.