Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship is off to a disappointing start
2025.01.29
Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim (second from left) and Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. (right) attend the closing ceremony of the 44th and 45th ASEAN summits and for the handing over of chairmanship to Malaysia, at the National Convention Centre in Vientiane, Laos, Oct. 11, 2024.
[Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters]
There has been considerable hype around Malaysia taking over the chairmanship of Southeast Asian bloc ASEAN this year, with pundits focusing on the leadership and vision of Anwar Ibrahim, the country’s prime minister.
Early indications suggest that these expectations of Malaysia as 2025 leader of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations may be hard to fulfill.
One problem is that Malaysia’s chairmanship risks the potential of being too much about Anwar, and not enough about ASEAN.
For example, Anwar’s personal choice of ally and former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra as an ASEAN adviser did not go down well in a politically divided Thailand. Nor did it recognize that Thaksin’s interventions around the Myanmar crisis have not helped.
Another problem is having a viable plan to meet expectations, especially as attention will focus on the pressure points facing ASEAN.
This became apparent during the first meeting of ASEAN foreign ministers in Langkawi earlier this month.
A joint statement released after this meeting was a long and unfocused laundry list of tired reaffirmations related to a wide range of issues from ASEAN’s role in regional security and economic cooperation to Israel’s actions in Gaza.
The communiqué spoke to broad ambitions, but didn’t adequately highlight ASEAN’s priority action areas. Malaysia simultaneously seemed unprepared to engage the media on its plans as chair.
If Malaysia does not create a roadmap for its goals for ASEAN in 2025, it risks wasting a vital opportunity to strengthen the Southeast Asian bloc at a critical period of uncertainty in global geopolitics, and opens itself to criticism.
Adjustments are needed. Here’s what Malaysia needs to do as ASEAN chair.
First and foremost, the regional bloc needs to be prepared to respond to threats facing Southeast Asia’s economy.
The specter of tariffs from the new Donald Trump administration in the United States has already unsettled many Southeast Asian nations.
Additionally, many of these countries run high trade deficits with the U.S., which may have put them on a Trump watch list.
ASEAN needs to maintain its regional centrality now more than ever, because current geopolitical conditions are liable to foster individualistic behavior by countries rather than cooperation.
These conditions will require ASEAN chair Malaysia to focus on fostering multilateral trade and collectively ameliorating potential economic disruptions.
‘Scam-running havens’
Another urgent issue that needs Anwar’s attention is transnational crime.
ASEAN has become the epicenter for a multibillion-dollar global scam economy.
Southeast Asia appears to still be in denial about how serious this problem is and the reasons it needs to be dealt with urgently.
ASEAN member-states Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos have become scam-running havens, even as criminal syndicates have victimized people through online pig butchering fraud and trafficked thousands through fake job offers.
These scam operations have had a knock-on effect as they have begun to negatively impact tourism to Southeast Asia, especially from China.
Social media is rife with Chinese citizens posting that they fear being abducted, especially if they visit Cambodia or Thailand.
If ASEAN does not push back against transnational criminals now, the bloc will find it much harder to do so later.
One only has to look at the power of the cartels in the Americas to see the consequences of a failure to act regionally.
The Myanmar question
In Langkawi, Malaysia’ response to the civil strife in Myanmar was perhaps the most concerning indicator of its chairmanship potentially not living up to the hype.
Malaysia’s leadership showed an inadequate understanding of the current conditions in Myanmar, which this week marks the fourth anniversary of the military coup that overthrew an elected government.
To make matters worse, Myanmar has also been badly hit by the Trump administration’s halt of humanitarian assistance, which will exacerbate an already serious crisis.
ASEAN’s joint statement after the Langkawi foreign ministers’ meeting called for “peace” and “inclusive elections” in Myanmar, belying realities on the ground.
Recent chairs of ASEAN have strengthened engagement with the military junta, even as it has lost territory and power.
Malaysia had foreshadowed that it might do the same, when it reaffirmed the failed five-point consensus as its main reference of engagement. The move indicated a failure to acknowledge multiple sovereign stakes within Myanmar.
ASEAN member-states' governments have wrongly prioritized Myanmar’s military over other groups, notably the National Unity Government and ethnic armed groups that together control more than half the country.
Malaysia needs to adopt a more inclusive Myanmar strategy and publicly acknowledge and engage all the major stakeholders. A failure to do so puts lives at risk, and Malaysia’s reputation as well.
If there was promise in the Langkawi meeting it was related to Malaysia’s theme for 2025 – sustainability.
The year ahead offers potential for cooperation on carbon credits and the operationalization of the much-needed ASEAN Centre for Climate Change.
Here, too, urgency is paramount as Southeast Asian nations continue to be highly vulnerable to damage from climate change.
Malaysia’s leadership of ASEAN will be successful if she puts the interests of the region’s people above those of its leaders and sets clear priorities on pressing issues with viable plans to achieve them.
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