ASEAN risks irrelevance amid growing sub-regional groupings

The shifting strategic landscape has seen the emergence of new arrangements involving countries in and around South-east Asia.

These include a trilateral partnership between the US, Japan and the Philippines, whose leaders held their first summit in 2024, and growing four-way cooperation between the US, Japan, Australia and the Philippines, sometimes referred to as the Squad.

Such groupings are not necessarily intended to replace ASEAN, but their proliferation has caused some to raise questions over whether ASEAN-led forums could lose influence, as countries increasingly turn to smaller arrangements to address specific challenges.

Kao did not name any such groupings, but he said that ASEAN should make better use of the institutions it already has, including the East Asia Summit, ASEAN Regional Forum and ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus, which bring the grouping together with major powers, including China and the US.

“The issue, therefore, is not whether dialogue remains relevant, but how ASEAN can make more strategic and effective use of the instruments and mechanisms already at its disposal,” he said.

Dialogue and diplomacy should remain ASEAN’s “instruments of first resort”, particularly as competition between major powers intensifies, he added.

But ASEAN’s continued relevance would ultimately depend on what these institutions could deliver, Kao said. Its longstanding ambition to remain at the centre of regional diplomacy – often referred to as ASEAN centrality – could not simply be taken for granted.

“It must be earned continually through ASEAN’s ability to bring countries together, manage differences and enable collective action,” he said.

Economic, tech and security challenges

Kao also highlighted economic resilience, technological change and transnational security as major challenges for ASEAN as it enters its seventh decade.

He said energy, food and economic security could no longer be treated separately, as disruption in one area could quickly spill over into others.

But ASEAN should not respond to greater uncertainty by retreating from the openness and economic integration that have helped drive the region’s growth.

“The task is therefore not to reduce interdependence, but to make it safer – through diversification, redundancy, stronger regional capacity and a greater ability to absorb and recover from shocks,” Kao said.

On artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, Kao said ASEAN had to ensure that the benefits were widely shared, rather than allowing technological change to deepen existing inequalities.

He added that the grouping also faces an increasingly interconnected range of threats, from maritime tensions and cyberattacks to online scams, transnational crime and climate-related disasters.

As ASEAN prepares to mark six decades since its founding in 1967, Kao said it should examine whether institutions and approaches that served it in the past remain suited to a very different strategic environment.

“ASEAN has never advanced by standing still. It has advanced by adapting – by thinking together, making choices together and finding ways to move forward together,” he said.