អាស៊ាននៅផ្លូវបំបែក

 Can Malaysia’s ASEAN Community Vision 2045 succeed in reversing the region’s fragmentation?

Kuala Lumpur is under a tight security lockdown this week – 16,000 police officers are deployed, major roads shuttered, and the city center effectively sealed – as several world leaders, including U.S. President Donald Trump and Chinese Premier Li Qiang will gather in the city for the 47th ASEAN Summit and related meetings during October 26-28. During the summit, Timor-Leste is also set to officially join ASEAN, marking the bloc’s first expansion in more than two decades.

This year’s summit may be one of ASEAN’s toughest yet. As Southeast Asia’s primary multilateral institution, it must simultaneously manage the endemic crisis in Myanmar, which has exposed the limits of its diplomatic approach; navigate an intensifying China-U.S. rivalry that is forcing tougher choices on member states; and also attempt to realize the newly adopted ASEAN Community Vision 2045. This summit will offer hints as to whether the “ASEAN Way” can adapt to 21st century challenges or whether the region’s future will be shaped by forces beyond its control.

Malaysia’s Vision 2045: Ambition Meets Reality

As this year’s chair of ASEAN, Malaysia has set the bloc’s most ambitious agenda in recent years with the ASEAN Community Vision 2045, which was adopted in May. This framework is based on four pillars: Political-Security, Economic, Socio-Cultural, and Connectivity. It aspires to transform Southeast Asia, a region of nearly 700 million people, into the world’s fourth-largest economy by 2045, building on the region’s current trajectory toward a combined GDP of $4 trillion.

The centerpiece of ASEAN’s economic agenda is the Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA), which the bloc aims to conclude by end of the year. If successful, DEFA would become the world’s first region-wide digital economy agreement, potentially unlocking a $2 trillion digital economy by 2030 by harmonizing regional standards on digital trade, e-commerce, cross-border data flows, cybersecurity, and AI governance. While the agreement represents ASEAN’s greatest opportunity for integration, it is also a complex challenge as member states are at vastly different stages of digital readiness.

Malaysia has also advanced four Priority Economic Deliverables focusing on enhancing trade and investment, creating inclusive pathways, promoting integration and connectivity, and building digital resilience. The planned ASEAN Trade in Goods Agreement upgrade and scheduled 2027 review of the implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership trade pact are among these deliverables. These initiatives are based on ASEAN’s existing regional trade, which represents about 50 percent of its total trade. However, the trade between ASEAN countries only makes up about 21 percent of the total, a figure significantly lower than regional blocs such as the EU, where internal trade amounts to about 60 percent of its total.

Whether ASEAN can achieve such an ambitious economic agenda remains to be seen. History shows that ASEAN’s visions have been consistently stronger on paper than they have in practice. The bloc has been constrained by its limited institutional capacity and consensus-based decision-making model, which often produces lowest-common-denominator outcomes. The approximately $20 million annual budget of the ASEAN secretariat pales beside the European Commission’s resources, while the divergent political systems and development levels of the bloc’s 10 member states complicate unified action. Whether Vision 2045 succeeds will depend on ASEAN’s ability to make the structural adjustments necessary to turn its grand promises into real action.

The Myanmar Crisis: ASEAN’s Ongoing Challenge

Nearly five years have passed since Myanmar’s military coup, and the country remains engulfed in a civil war that has created the region’s worst humanitarian catastrophe. The conflict has also exposed ASEAN’s institutional limitations. With 3.5 million internally displaced persons, 1.4 million refugees, and more than 6,700 civilian deaths, Myanmar has become the biggest test of the bloc’s credibility, as the “ASEAN Way” of quiet diplomacy and non-interference has proven utterly ineffective in resolving the country’s crisis.

The junta’s planned election, which it intends to hold in several phases starting on December 28, shows just how stuck the crisis has become. Malaysia’s diplomatic efforts, including Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan’s October 9 visit to Naypyidaw to set “firm minimum benchmarks” for credible elections, reflect ASEAN’s continued reliance on engagement despite more than four years of evidence that Myanmar’s military leadership remains impervious to regional pressure. The Five-Point Consensus adopted in April 2021 has been systematically ignored; humanitarian access has been impeded and the junta has refused either to cease its violent attacks on its opponents or to engage in meaningful dialogue with “all parties” to the country’s conflict.

The spillover effects extend throughout the region. Thailand hosts more than 100,000 Myanmar refugees, Malaysia is struggling with irregular migration flows, and transnational crime networks operating from rebel-controlled territories facilitate human trafficking and online scams that target victims across the region and the globe. The conflict has severed traditional trade routes while creating investment uncertainty. Perhaps most damaging, ASEAN’s failure to shape events in Myanmar has raised hard questions about its capability and credibility.

China’s growing involvement in Myanmar makes the situation even trickier. Beijing’s January 2025 mediation of a ceasefire between Myanmar’s military and the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, followed by the handover in April of the city of Lashio back to junta control, demonstrates China’s superior leverage over Myanmar affairs. It also highlights how sidelined ASEAN has become in dealing with one of its own members, despite the bloc’s stated commitment to centrality in regional security matters.

Geopolitical Whiplash: Managing China-U.S. Competition

Trump’s planned attendance at the ASEAN Summit signals renewed U.S. engagement with Southeast Asia but also introduces an element of volatility that epitomizes the challenges ASEAN faces in navigating great power competition. The president’s transactional approach creates uncertainty for Southeast Asian leaders who remember his first administration’s neglect of the region, including skipped summits and Trump’s withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The Cambodia-Thailand ceasefire ceremony that Trump plans to oversee represents a form of diplomatic theater intended to demonstrate Washington’s (and Trump’s) relevance in regional security. However, his reported demand that Chinese officials be excluded from the ceremony also shows how ASEAN is being pushed into binary choices between the U.S. and China amid their growing strategic competition, which is undermining its traditional role as a neutral convening platform.

China’s economic clout makes ASEAN’s balancing act even harder. As the bloc’s largest trading partner since 2020, China accounted for nearly $1 trillion in annual trade as of last year., while Belt and Road Initiative investments span critical infrastructure across the region. ASEAN-China Free Trade Area 3.0 negotiations covering the digital economy, green development, and supply chains offer opportunities for expanded economic integration at a time when China-U.S. decoupling threatens to disrupt established patterns. Yet South China Sea tensions, exemplified most recently by the October 12 collision between Chinese and Philippine vessels near Thitu Island, demonstrate how territorial disputes can quickly escalate despite economic cooperation.

The Philippines represents ASEAN’s most acute dilemma in managing China-U.S. relations. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s expansion of defense cooperation with Washington, which has included increasing the U.S. military’s access to four additional military bases under the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, reflects Manila’s hardening stance against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea. This trajectory toward closer Philippines-U.S. alignment creates pressures for other ASEAN members to clarify their own positions.

Vietnam’s recent elevation of its diplomatic ties with the United States, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and Indonesia to the level of a comprehensive strategic partnership while simultaneously strengthening economic links with China, is a good example of the balanced strategies that most ASEAN members prefer. However, Trump’s unpredictable policies and China’s growing assertiveness make such balancing acts increasingly difficult to sustain.

Economic Integration: Big Promises, Small Results

ASEAN’s economic agenda mirrors its broader challenge of turning promises into results. The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, in force since 2022, created the world’s largest trade bloc, yet non-tariff barriers continue to multiply even as tariffs fall. The ASEAN Economic Ministers’ meeting in Vientiane last year acknowledged the on-paper advances but also the exposed regulatory inconsistencies, infrastructure gaps, and limited labor mobility that still fragment the regional market and complicate the realization of ASEAN’s economic ambitions.

Efforts like the ASEAN Single Window show promise but have been paralyzed in implementation. Customs digitalization is technically operational across all member states, but integration remains slow and uneven.

Climate resilience adds another layer of complexity. Despite commitments to reach 23 percent renewable energy by 2025, progress on this goal varies widely, and the impact of sea-level rise and extreme weather already threatens nearly one-third of regional GDP. Aspirations for an ASEAN Power Grid by 2045 could enable the cross-border trade in energy, yet political coordination and financing remain major obstacles.

Timor-Leste’s coming admission to ASEAN is also likely to place the bloc under strain. The country’s inclusion completes the geographic map of Southeast Asia, but its limited institutional capacity will require sustained support if it is to participate meaningfully in the bloc’s economic frameworks. The milestone reflects ASEAN’s inclusivity, while highlighting the enduring tension between symbolic unity and practical effectiveness.

Institutional Constraints and Strategic Drift

The 47th ASEAN Summit comes as the bloc’s founding principles of consensus and non-interference face their sharpest tests. These norms once preserved harmony among diverse states, but they now curb swift action on crises like Myanmar and collective responses to external pressures.

Malaysia’s ambitious Vision 2045 depends on transforming these economic aspirations into tangible results. The ASEAN Secretariat’s limited budget and authority restrict policy follow-through, while the bloc’s consensus model often dilutes decisions to the lowest common denominator. The result is an institutional inertia that is eroding at ASEAN’s credibility just when the world expects more from it.

External partnerships – from the ASEAN+3 mechanism to the East Asia Summit – expand ASEAN’s diplomatic bandwidth but risk increasing its dependence on external actors. Initiatives such as the ASEAN-GCC-China trilateral this year illustrate its growing outreach, yet also reveal how “centrality” increasingly relies on engagement with larger powers. Without internal cohesion, ASEAN risks drifting from agenda-setter to agenda-follower in its own region.

Three Scenarios for ASEAN’s Future

The upcoming summit’s outcomes will largely determine which of three scenarios defines the bloc’s trajectory between now and 2030. The best-case scenario would be a strategic adaptation where ASEAN successfully implements Vision 2045 priorities, digital economy integration through DEFA attracts sustained foreign investment, and deeper economic integration raises intra-regional trade toward 30 percent. In this scenario, the Myanmar crisis is resolved through engagement with all stakeholders, and most importantly, ASEAN maintains its strategic autonomy by deepening partnerships with multiple powers and avoiding forced alignment with either the United States or China.

The middle path of managed decline would be a situation in which ASEAN maintains its institutional existence and serves as a valuable dialogue platform, preventing the escalation of regional tensions while providing face-saving mechanisms for conflict management. Economic integration will progress, but at a slow pace and with persistent gaps, achieving modest improvements without breakthrough moments. The bloc would not be able to resolve major crises like Myanmar but might succeed in preventing further deterioration through diplomatic engagement. This seems to be the most likely outcome as of now.

The worst-case scenario would see Myanmar’s crisis destabilize neighboring borders, resulting in a worsening of the humanitarian catastrophe. China-U.S. competition would force hard choices that might even split ASEAN into competing camps, with some members aligning clearly with Washington and others gravitating toward Beijing. Economic promises would remain unfulfilled as members pursue separate bilateral arrangements with great powers, effectively making ASEAN irrelevant and reducing the bloc to ceremonial summits without any substantive impact.

The Stakes for Regional Order

The upcoming ASEAN Summit constitutes a stress test of whether Southeast Asia’s primary multilateral institution can deliver on its promises in an era of great power competition, growing internal crises, and rapid technological change. Malaysia’s chairmanship has set ambitious goals through Vision 2045, but ASEAN’s credibility depends on moving from declarations to implementation, from process to outcomes.

ASEAN’s trajectory carries implications extending far beyond Southeast Asia. A strong, cohesive ASEAN can serve as a stabilizing force in the Indo-Pacific, managing tensions and providing neutral ground for great power engagement. A weakened or fragmented ASEAN would create a vacuum that both powers may seek to fill, potentially destabilizing the entire region. Ironically, in doing so, both Washington and Beijing would weaken the very institution whose stability ultimately benefits them.

thediplomat