EP91: ASEAN Resilience with Professor Dewi Fortuna Anwar
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Welcome to Straight Talk Southeast Asia. This is a podcast that covers current developments in the region, particular countries, domestic politics, as well as regional issues. We look in depth at what is happening, why it might be happening. We speak to analysts, academics from the region, based in the region, and to better understand what's happening and what might be the projections of what's happening ahead. We're now in our second season.

I'm Bridget Welsh. I'm a political analyst and academic who's worked on Southeast Asia for many decades. I was raised here. I'm living here. And very importantly, I care about what's happening in the region. Thanks for joining me. Hello, and welcome to Straight Talk Southeast Asia, Season 3, Episode 23. I'm your co-host, Zachary Abusa. If the governments of ASEAN were hoping for some clarity on tariffs from the Trump administration,

What they got this past week was absolute whiplash. The International Trade Court, a federal court based in New York City, issued a unanimous decision stating that the Trump administration's decision to impose tariffs based on a 1977 law was an "ingregious overstep of those authorities."

To quote the ruling, "...the worldwide and retaliatory tariff orders exceed any authority granted to the President to regulate importation by means of tariffs." That ruling did not lift the Section 232 tariffs that give the Secretary of Commerce the power to do comprehensive investigations on the basis of national security concerns.

It also did not lift Section 301 tariffs that are under the U.S. Trade Representatives authority that can target specific countries who impose unfair trade barriers against the United States. But for the countries of Southeast Asia, the majority of the tariffs imposed in the April 2nd Liberation Day announcement fall under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.

This is what the court clearly rejected. Quote, The court does not read the IEEE PA to confer such unbounded authority and set aside the challenge tariffs imposed thereunder. End quote. This was a complete repudiation. The Trump administration, however, immediately appealed the ruling and was granted an immediate injunction.

For now, the tariffs, which range from a regional low of 10% on Singapore to 24% on Malaysia to 46% on Vietnam and a whopping 49% on Cambodia, remain in force. And the governments now have to reconsider their negotiating strategies.

Given the gravity of the case and the implications for the U.S. economy, the case is likely to be fast-tracked to the U.S. Supreme Court, leaving countries, businesses, and markets in a prolonged sense of uncertainty. As the ASEAN summit was underway, with pans to regional peace and security,

A clash broke out in a disputed region on the Thai-Cambodia border, leaving one Cambodian soldier dead. Thai military officials claimed that Cambodian troops entered into the disputed region very near the confluence of the Thai, Lao, and Cambodian borders and fired first on May 28. The Cambodians claimed to have been on a routine patrol when the Thai side opened fire first.

While that is in dispute, what is not is the fact that a 10-minute firefight left one Cambodian soldier dead and several wounded before calmer heads prevailed. Thai Prime Minister Paitung Tan Shinawatra spoke with her counterpart, Hood Manet, and both prime ministers pledged to de-escalate the situation.

Nonetheless, both sides moved heavy military equipment, including multiple rocket launchers and other reinforcements, into the region. This had been captured in a series of social media postings. General Pana Plaupotok, the Thai army chief, met with his Cambodian counterpart, General Mao Tse-fan, at a border checkpoint.

and both sides agreed to withdraw troops to their previous positions and convene a meeting of the Joint Boundary Commission within two weeks. The 800-kilometer border was established in the colonial era. The area around the Prevahar temple was found to be Cambodian territory in a 1962 ruling by the International Court of Justice.

The last time an armed clash erupted in the area was in 2011. A 2013 ruling by the International Court of Justice awarded territory where the recent fighting erupted to Cambodia. And yet there remains disputed territory. The dispute was quickly capitalized on by nationalists in both countries.

On May 30, Thailand announced the closure of six border crossings and ten smaller informal crossings. Stain in Thailand

Despite the Thai government's May 1st decision to not prosecute U.S. academic Paul Chambers for laissez-majeste, citing insufficient evidence, Chambers was forced to leave the kingdom. He is appealing both his firing by his former employer, Nauson University, and the Thai foreign ministry for revoking his visa. And yet, until those cases play out,

He has been forced from the kingdom. It is a huge black eye on the Thai government for a case that even their own prosecutors admitted there was no evidence to support. Finally, we turn to Singapore, the host of the annual Shangri-La Dialogue, the region's premier security conference.

It was the first appearance by U.S. Secretary of Defense Peter Hegseth, who unsurprisingly delivered the most partisan speech of a U.S. Defense Secretary in recent memory. Unaware that this was not an appearance on Fox News, we're at a campaign stop.

He laid out what he considered to be the key failures of the Biden administration. Comparing President Trump with Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew provoked even more guffaws from the audience, as Singapore's founding father was thoroughly committed to building the rules-based international order, not decimating it.

Hegseth emphasized that the Asia-Pacific was the primary theater for the United States and that the government of the People's Republic of China was undermining security in the region. He reiterated that U.S. treaty obligations were ironclad.

But, as with the mantra we have heard in Europe, he called for greater burden sharing and argued that allies and partners in Asia should consider spending up to 5% of GDP on defense. This fell completely flat.

For reference, Singapore, which already spends more on defense on a per capita basis than any other country in the region, spends 2.8% of GDP on defense, followed by South Korea at 2.6%, Taiwan at 2.1%, and Australia at 1.9%.

There was very scant mention of ASEAN and Secretary Hegseth's remarks, leaving many in the region to feel concerned that they are once again just an afterthought being pulled into America's conflict with China. If the governments of Southeast Asia were expecting to be reassured by the U.S. position, most, with the exception of the Philippines, should be feeling even more insecure this week.

You're here with Professor Dewi Duna Anwar. She is a professor at the National Research Center Brin in Indonesia. She is a visiting fellow at ICMAS here in Kuala Lumpur. She's the chairman of the board of Habibi Center in Indonesia, in Jakarta. Prof. Dewi, an old friend, a good friend. Thank you so much for being here on Straight Talk Southeast Asia. Thank you, Bridget. It's lovely to be here.

You've written a lot about ASEAN. I would argue that you are part of the people who stress and emphasize ASEAN and see ASEAN through a very important regional lens. What's your assessment of how Malaysia has done in the ASEAN chairmanship so far? What do you see are the strengths and the weaknesses? We're only half a year in, but how do you see it? You were based in KL during the ASEAN meetings this past week.

Yes, I think I have to congratulate Malaysia and Datuk Sri Anwar Ibrahim, the Prime Minister. Malaysia has done really well so far in terms of the organization itself. It's been very smooth. In fact, it's been capped by the ASEAN All-Stars football beating Manchester United. You know, that seems to be a real feather in the cap. But in terms of the logistics, it's gone really well. I

I haven't had any real serious complaints about it, although they have a bit of a lockdown in KL. I'm lucky in Putrajaya. But the most important thing is in terms of substance, there have been some remarkable achievements.

One of the outcomes of the '46 summit is the Kuala Lumpur Declaration, which launches the ASEAN 2045, which replaces ASEAN Vision for 2025. Malaysia launched that in 2015 when it was chair. So Malaysia is very good at this vision thing. There is this hope that ASEAN has clear goals and a clear strategy.

It's a bit aspirational, ambitious, but we'll have to see what the follow-through is.

But the fact that they got this, I think that's a good, positive thing. I've been a strong supporter of Timor-Leste's full membership of ASEAN. We had hoped that it would have happened during Indonesia's chairmanship in 2023, but there have been some difficulties. But we're happy to hear that it will be announced that Timor-Leste will be a full member in October 2025. And then, of course, this inaugural meeting.

the ASEAN GCC, Gulf Cooperation Council and China. This is the first time. And then the second meeting of the ASEAN GCC summit. So there have been some quite significant milestones in this 46th summit in Kuala Lumpur.

The vision element is basically, as you said, aspirational, lots of idealism. Many people would say that there's actually not much in the specifics. Could you point to something concrete that would help people in ASEAN as part of this vision that you've outlined? This vision has been done by ASEAN as an institution. It's launched in Malaysia, but it's been a product of hard work of many of those working in ASEAN.

So in some ways, Malaysia gets the credit for launching it. The work has been done by everyone, and particularly ASEAN bureaucrats.

Yes, yeah, I agree. It's a rotational chair, but it's a joint effort. Aspirationals, because it talks about motherhood and apple pie, basically. Then visions about being a stable, prosperous, modern community which protects and promotes human rights, dear to democracy, good governance, rule of law. If you look at it,

It's in part a reiteration of the ASEAN Charter. If you read the ASEAN Charter, it's wonderful, the vision of this modern community. But the fact of the matter is, there's a real democracy deficit in ASEAN. What happens now is very different from 2003 and 2007, 2008, during the time of the Charter, when there was real hope that the region would be really becoming much more open, more pluralistic in terms of its political system.

Indonesia was really, at the time, a bit messianic in a way, because it was just nearly open as a democracy. That has been lost for a while, so I'm quite happy to see that there's still a paragraph. I was, in fact, a bit worried. That is the first thing when I read through the Kuala Lumpur Declaration, where the word democracy and human rights would appear anywhere. And I'm relieved that it's still there, although it's not among one of the last points in the political and security one.

But I think clearly when it comes to the measurable things, economic ones, that's where achievements can be measured by numbers. They're becoming quite hopeful that they're going to carry out improvement in trades in goods and connectivity and so on and so forth.

In the social culture, it's a bit fluffy, as usual, about ASEAN identity. But it talks about sports, films, and so on. It doesn't talk about common values and common visions of what the community should be like. It talks about ASEAN being one family. As usual, as I said, it's aspirational.

I haven't got around to reading their strategy yet, but I'm sure that when it comes to the strategy, it's more like Bahasa Inusia to be like Himbawan, you know, because ASEAN doesn't really have any supranational authority. It doesn't really have any enforcement mechanism. It really depends very much on the political will and the commitment of each member state. All of those various achievements have to be done at the national level.

Hope you're enjoying listening to this episode. If you want to find out more about previous episodes, you can reach this on the website, straighttalksoutheastasia.com. The link should also be available in the show notes. If you want to contribute to the production costs of the podcast, you can hit the link, buy me a coffee. Every little penny counts. All that money will not go to me, but go to the producers who are helping me to put the show together. Thanks for listening.

What we're looking at is a situation where these aspirations and others are still reinforced as element of a talk shop. But the thing that you mentioned that I think is substantive, that is going to be Malaysia's success this year, is Timor-Leste. I wanted to push you a little further on why this did not happen under the Indonesia's chairmanship.

What are the obstacles? I understand Singapore, for example, was one of the obstacles for Timor coming into ASEAN. And Malaysia has been a driving force towards bringing Timor in, especially the close relationship between Amr Ibrahim and Ramos Horta, among others. We bring in a democracy into ASEAN, in fact, the best-rated democracy in the region compared to all the other countries.

Why did it take so long for Timor to be brought in? Is this, as you and I have suggested, a success for Anwar Ibrahim? It's a success for everyone. Let's put it that way. Indonesia and Malaysia have been the champions.

For Indonesia, this is also national closure. It's also symbolic for Indonesia to be the one that had been a strong supporter of Timor-Leste being integrated into the region. For Indonesia to accept Timor-Leste as an equal, as a sovereign state, is very significant given the fact of the troubled history where Timor-Leste was annexed by Indonesia and was controlled by Indonesia for more than two decades. But the real reason is not political, it's more technical.

I went to Timor-Leste last year. It's something like whether they have adequate airport, because if a country is to be a full member, then it has to be able to accommodate big meetings, summits. And it's not just summits for the 10 Asia leaders to be coming with their own aeroplanes and so on. But for the East Asia summit, you have to be able to accommodate the big players as well, not just about transportations, about airport-backed hotels.

At one point, Zanana was a bit worried that they don't have a hospital that is high enough standard. If the Sultan of Burma were to get tired and needs to go to hospital, would he be able to go to a local hospital or would he have to be flown out to Bali? Something like that. So they really need to take care of the physical infrastructure as well. And then, of course, the institutional capacity. Hosting hundreds and hundreds of meetings, you really need to have

the human resources in place. Indonesia and other countries have been helping Timor-Leste and clearly they've been satisfied that Timor-Leste has met all of the concerns. Now, Kelly is considered to be ready to host a summit when it's Timor-Leste's turn to be chair. And it starts with a T, so, you know, it will probably not be too long.

Indeed. Four countries from now, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Timor. What do you see as the current major challenges of ASEAN? We can unpack more about what happened in the meeting in a moment, but the bigger challenges, incorporating another democracy, will this affect a new divide in a regional organization that is very divided, where many countries in the region are putting ASEAN second in terms of their foreign policy?

My understanding and sense of the meeting in Kuala Lumpur is that the biggest stuff happened at bilateral meetings, not in ASEAN itself. And it was really about theater. The substance really happened in the backroom bilateral deals. You may see it differently. And that's what I wanted you to unpack about. What do you see as the challenges for ASEAN?

The challenge is to answer the skeptics like you and also among the younger generation of ASEAN people who take regional stability and political stability for granted. How to make sure that ASEAN remains relevant, to feel that it is needed. For the older generation, they remember the time when Southeast Asia was not

peaceful when South Asia was still divided. So they could really see the difference that ASEAN has made in terms of international relations within ASEAN, say the interstate relations. But now how to make ASEAN matters to the people. And I think that this is the real challenge.

There are so many challenges that ASEAN faces. ASEAN has to deal now with geopolitical rivalry that is becoming much more intense. Although I would argue that ASEAN has never really been safe from geopolitical rivalry. After all, it came out during the Cold War. But now people are increasingly worried. If there is a real crisis between the U.S. and China, how will ASEAN cope?

ASEAN's modest apprentice to engage with both sides and to hope that a bit of competition is good. It gives ASEAN space and to be able to play one against the other, probably. But a real clash would be very difficult for ASEAN. So that is an external one. Myanmar issue, what happens in Myanmar is beyond the ability of ASEAN to fix. But people expect ASEAN to deal with that. Myanmar issue to a certain extent has held ASEAN back.

But for me, the most important thing is ASEAN has this aspiration to become a community. And that means bringing the people in. And it talks about the people. But if you look at it, it's extremely intergovernmental. It's still very elitist. There's not sufficient track-through involvement, not sufficient civil society engagements. It's still very much stopped down. And it's mobilization rather than real participation.

This is a real challenge. How to make it matter? When you're talking about ASEAN centrality, ASEAN only talks about whether it is central in terms of engaging with the outside powers, whether the ASEAN mechanism is the one that drives those relationships. But for me, ASEAN centrality also means it's central to the ASEAN people.

When ASEAN countries make laws, do they think about ASEAN at all? To what extent is there between national interests and regional interests converge? That is a real challenge. But on the other hand, I would also argue that ASEAN becomes more integrated because of all of these challenges.

I would argue that ASEAN did not want to become integrated regionally. The word integration itself was anathema in the early days because it was just supposed to be a loose association. It was just some club for the foreign ministers where they would play golf with each other. It was because of external pressures, because of the rising in economy blocks like the EU and the NAFTA, the rise of other economies, the former communist countries becoming open economies.

So external pressures are the ones that push ASEAN to reinvent itself. And then now I would hope that internal criticism, the self-criticism for ASEAN would also push ASEAN to reinvent itself, to make it increase, still relevant, fit for purpose for the 21st century.

Let's go back to one of the things that you mentioned, which is the crisis in Myanmar. You pointed out that it was beyond ASEAN to address this, but ASEAN leaders continue to say that they can. Ceasefires that don't really exist are announced in meetings where you sit down with people who are facing potential criminal charges, not yet listed, but announced that they may be coming. The fact that ASEAN has tried to portray itself as being a leader

on trying to deal with issues of Myanmar has basically enabled the military. We've seen many more deaths as a result of their actions.

What can be done? Why has ASEAN been ineffective in trying to deal with this issue? If we look back, scholars like yourself will look at ASEAN. The Cambodia issue took 15 years to resolve as a crisis within the region. Do you see similar trajectories for these issues of Myanmar, or do we see more progress? What's your thinking on this?

I would argue that it becomes much more difficult for ASEAN to deal with Myanmar precisely because Myanmar is a member of ASEAN. And therefore, it does, in a way, hold ASEAN hostage because of this consensus and decision-making process and this sacrosanct principle of non-interference in each other's internal affairs of each other. Cambodia was not a member of ASEAN at that time, so ASEAN was able to deal with Myanmar.

Although ASEAN was still very divided at the time, but Cambodia was outside of ASEAN. But on the other hand, I would disagree with you that ASEAN has been inactive. A couple of months in April 2021, just two months after the coup, Indonesia took the initiative to host that leaders' meeting in Jakarta. At the time, the chair was Brunei, and it came up with a five-point consensus.

We may say that it is ineffective, but this is the first time that ASEAN came up with this idea. And the most important thing is that excluding the top leadership in Myanmar, the political leaders of the military, to attend the ASEAN summit. This is considered to be quite path-breaking for ASEAN. This is considered to be interfering, actually. ASEAN does not recognize the hunter. ASEAN does not allow the hunter leaders to attend ASEAN summit. But

We may agree or disagree. There's been criticisms that being just on a moral high ground and not willing to touch Rwanda is not helping others. I give Anwar the benefit of the doubt to see whether there is any development here.

If it were me, I would go beyond just not inviting the top leaders. I would suspend the membership because it's a clear violation of the ASEAN Charter because the ASEAN Charter clearly states about non-constitutional change of government, that it should be a constitutional change of government, respect for social change of government, that one should not accept coup d'etats. And many other regional organizations, African unions, are able to suspend the membership of a member of that union when there's a coup d'etat.

I would go further, but this, unfortunately, ASEAN does not have the tool to do that. The draft of the ASEAN Charter also included enforcement mechanisms. So it just didn't talk about the values, the norms, but also about how to enforce the various norms and values and regulations of ASEAN. But the bureaucrats took them out.

So you have an organization which has rules, but no means of actually enforcing that rule. This, in fact, has been one of the main weaknesses of NUKA ASEAN. It's a design flaw here. And I don't think that it's an oversight. It is very much a deliberate design by the powers that be within ASEAN, who do not really want to have a regional organization that is too powerful.

So ASEAN is still very much a dependent variable. To a certain extent, it has its own dynamics, but to a large extent, ASEAN is still very much the product of the member states' policies.

and not the member states, the elites of the member states. This is an interesting dynamic. On the one hand, what we've seen is ASEAN grew as a regional organization. There's many more meetings, a lot more bureaucracy, a lot of things that have sustainability, be it on sections that did not get as much attention in the meetings, such as climate change or digital payments, healthcare. These are things that are shifting and changing. ASEAN as an organization

has grown into a very robust technical organization that has expertise. At the same time, we also see a situation where there's a problem of implementation on dealing with big problems such as Myanmar and also things like the South China Sea. What do you see as the positives of the regional organization and some of the drawbacks?

The most important thing is creating this regional trust. I don't think we should be dismissive about trust because there's been so much trust deficit. There's so many conflicts now. There's so many wars happening in many parts of the world.

Politics are back. This sense of security community where open conflicts will not ever happen within ASEAN member states will continue to hold. And I think even if ASEAN doesn't do anything else, preventing wars is still extremely important. But ASEAN itself has a mission of becoming something more.

Not just because it's good in itself, but it's going to make the region stronger, much more resilient in facing external pressures with geopolitics or geoeconomics. Standing together, be firm together. You might have different national interests, but when you face your adversary together, it will make ASEAN much more credible.

Even a big country like Indonesia, which may think that it can go on its own, I think it has greater weight and greater credibility because it speaks on behalf of a whole region. For smaller countries to be able to sit at the high table with big players, that's important. But the risk, the need is to calibrate this. ASEAN makes hay slowly, but please not too slowly. We don't want people to get too disillusioned either.

If outsiders are dismissive of ASEAN, then it's up to ASEAN to show why ASEAN matters. But if ASEAN people themselves lose interest in ASEAN, then ASEAN has a problem. And I feel that when we look at various studies, knowledge about ASEAN and commitment about ASEAN, they know about ASEAN, but the commitment to ASEAN maybe is not as high as one would wish.

This is a conflicting circumstances. We see good things in terms of the organization and we see areas where there is shortcomings. It's good not to be necessarily skeptical, but realistic about where the areas that things can grow for ASEAN. If you were going to identify two issues briefly about what to look forward to in terms of ASEAN, things that people don't regularly bring attention to, what would they be?

There are just so many things. But for me, strengthening the ASEAN organization is very important. Making the ASEAN Secretariat that it's not just given the tasks, but not the tools to deal with it. They should be given sufficient support, enough financial support, enough human resources support, and not just depending on dialogue partners to pay for it. So ASEAN members should

be willing to commit to invest in strengthening the region. And secondly, I think it's about time that we revisit the Charter. Although there could be concerns whether now is a good time to revisit the Charter because I think there's a democracy deficit. It could be a danger that instead of moving forward, we could all be moving backward. But I do really believe that ASEAN, we should revisit and seriously think about where we're headed. If we don't take our...

organization seriously, if you allow impunity for bad behavior,

that it's not a good development for the region. But the most important thing that I welcome is that there is a possibility that there'll be an ASEAN envoy to deal with Myanmar instead of this rotational envoy of the chair who changes every year and is totally ineffective because he doesn't have the envoy of the chair, doesn't have time to get to know anybody on the ground or for people to know him to build trust. So let's hope that there is some serious movement to deal with Myanmar. And the most important thing when you talk about

dialogues, ASEAN should really have more comprehensive dialogues at the formal level with all the segments in Myanmar. Not just approaching the hunter, but the NUG, the ethnic groups and the civil society. There should be some serious movement in that direction. Let us hope that for the Myanmar people and for ASEAN and for everyone, some of these very great suggestions that you've talked about, Prof Dewi, to have substance.

This has been Professor Dewi Ferdinand-Anwar speaking about ASEAN, talking about the ASEAN meetings and first part of the summit in Malaysia, as well as the organization. Prof. Dewi, thank you so much for being here on Straight Talk Southeast Asia. Thank you very much, Dr. Bridget. It's a pleasure. Thank you for listening to the episode. Subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast listening app. If you'd like to keep up to date on current Southeast Asian political affairs, just keep following me.

This is Bridget Welsh, and I look forward to connecting to you in the next episode. Straight Talk Southeast Asia is produced by Norman Chella, a.k.a. Norm, and you can find him at thatsthenorm.com. Thanks so much for listening.