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View all search resultsIndonesia will use this week's ASEAN foreign ministers' meetings in Manila to push for a more resilient, forward-looking and strategically independent regional bloc, arguing that Southeast Asia must strengthen its internal cohesion as geopolitical rivalries and global conflicts increasingly spill into the region.
The Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) ruled in favor of the Philippines on July 12, 2016, clarifying that China’s claim over maritime areas within the so-called “nine-dash line” have no lawful effect, unless stipulated by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). China, as well as Taiwan, rejected the ruling.
Beyond formal military alliances, the evolving Japan-Malaysia partnership proves that decades of accumulated trust can be just as strategically valuable as a defense pact in an uncertain Indo-Pacific.
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.
Conflicts far beyond Southeast Asia are expected to dominate discussions of leaders of the regional ASEAN bloc meeting in the Philippines, with the Middle East crisis posing significant challenges for its fuel import-dependent economies.
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