TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
New US envoy to ASEAN brings hope of greater engagement: Analysts
Analysts say that the new appointment offers hope for more intense ASEAN-US interactions and is the reassurance that the region had sought from the US to prove its seriousness in engaging with Southeast Asia.
Change Size
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (fifth left) shakes hands the “ASEAN Way” for a group photo with his Southeast Asian counterparts ahead of the ASEAN-US Post-Ministerial Conference in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Aug. 4, 2022. (AFP/Pool/Andrew Harnik)
I
ndonesia’s international relations community has welcomed the arrival of a new United States ambassador to ASEAN, after the post was left vacant for over five years despite Washington’s push for a greater Indo-Pacific presence.
Last week, former US National Security Council executive secretary Yohannes Abraham officially began his service in Jakarta as the new US Ambassador to ASEAN, after submitting his credentials to ASEAN Secretary-General Lim Jock Hoi. Ambassador Abraham was sworn in by US Vice President Kamala Harris on Sept. 19, 2022.
Analysts are saying that the new appointment offers hope for more intense ASEAN-US interactions and is the reassurance that the region had sought from the US to prove its seriousness in engaging with Southeast Asia.
Dewi Fortuna Anwar, a senior researcher on international politics and foreign policy at the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN,) said that she welcomed the arrival of Ambassador Abraham, as his appointment showed that the US respected and acknowledged the importance of ASEAN in the region.
She said that while US envoys were usually rotated whenever a new US president was sworn in, the previous US administration under Donald Trump barely paid much attention to ASEAN, after dismissing the last envoy to hold the Jakarta post due to political rivalry. Furthermore, Trump only attended the East Asia Summit once throughout his entire term in office, in 2017.
The new administration under US President Joe Biden, in contrast, is keen on bringing back the Rebalancing to Asia policy formerly espoused by Biden’s boss at the time, Barack Obama. The only difference, Dewi noted, was Washington’s insistence on setting up “minilateral alliances” such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and the Australia-United Kingdom-US (AUKUS) security partnership to complete its Indo-Pacific strategy.
She also pointed out that the new US ambassador would need to rebuild trust with ASEAN.
