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View all search resultsStill ASEAN leader?
Disunity has held back ASEAN from making progress on many fronts, particularly resolving the persistent issues in its backyard, and the same could also apply to the Prabowo administration's foreign policy stance as regards the bloc: Perhaps it is simply not the time for Indonesia to take up the regional mantle.
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President Prabowo Subianto (third right), along with other heads of government and top diplomats of ASEAN’s 11 member states, prepare to exit the stage on May 8, 2026, after taking a “family photo” during the opening ceremony of the 48th ASEAN Summit in Cebu, the Philippines. (AFP/Pool/Aaron Favila)
T
here should be no doubt that Indonesia is the natural leader of ASEAN and primus inter pares in Southeast Asia due to the sizable role it has played in pushing the regional bloc to become one of the most successful in the world. While Indonesia is always pleased and ready to serve that function, the more pertinent question today is whether ASEAN is ready for its leadership. The answer liess in the capitals of the 10 other members, not in Jakarta.
ASEAN clearly has internal problems that raise serious questions about its unity, the lack of which undermines its effectiveness in promoting regional cooperation, peace and stability, in its current march toward a community and in achieving its ambitions to play a bigger role in the Indo-Pacific and beyond. Without unity, we can forget about ASEAN centrality.
Don’t blame President Prabowo Subianto for not coming up with any new initiatives last week at the 48th ASEAN summit in Cebu, the Philippines. As far as the media have reported, the highlight of his attendance was not his speech but the Maung Garuda tactical limousine he brought to transport him from and to the airport.
During the summit, the region’s leaders went through the motions of discussing all the challenges it faces, ending with the typical, long statement from the current chair listing the past year’s progress on important, albeit mundane, issues in the evolution of the community.
It has been a long road indeed. ASEAN has repeatedly pushed back the community project, now to 2045, since its formal launch in 2015.
The chair’s statement addressed the security challenges that are undermining ASEAN unity but provided no convincing answers on how the group intends to deal with them, including the Myanmar conflict, the South China Sea tensions and the Thailand-Cambodia border conflict.
The region’s leaders continue to put their faith in the Five-Point Consensus that the Myanmar junta signed in Jakarta in April 2021, when it should be clear by now that the generals in Nyapyidaw have no intention of implementing them.
