- Why ASEAN Must Urgently Change and Reform

Barnama

26-05-2025

Opinions on topical issues from thought leaders, columnists and editors.
​All previous diplomatic conflict prevention​ mechanisms including TAC, SEANWFZ and AOIP will come to naught, and lacking any real alliances or deterrence, ​ASEAN will easily be exposed like a sore thumb.
ASEAN's own self-imposed neutrality and strategic hedging as the main factors of conflict deterrence, and dependence on external powers' own restrain are fast obsolete, failing to reduce tensions.
The 46th ASEAN Summit remains the apt platform to break old ground and chart a new future for ASEAN to prevent it from falling down further into the abyss of irrelevance.
The lack of an effective deterrence in the form of a clear physical defensive and security alliance, in contrast with Europe's sense of security assurance with NATO, invites this heightened rate of power concentration in the region.
This argument is obsolete as arms races and security dilemmas have already been escalating long before the current Sino-West rivalry due to ASEAN's own internal security wariness among its members.
Despite these mechanisms that ASEAN tried to promote​, the risks of conflicts have risen exponentially precisely because of the failure of ASEAN's conflict-prevention myth and misplaced reliance on the argument that the absence of high kinetic power force as a deterrence will help to lower the need for equal reactions and reducing security dilemma.​
For as long as this is absent, and for as long as ASEAN is dependent on external support in military, economics and markets, the so-called centrality and strategic neutrality concepts remain a utopian dream that fuelled complacency and self-fulfilling prophecy of rosy united dream.
ASEAN lacks the historical urgency and precedent unlike the Europeans, in having survived the decades of war and suffering, in coming together to form a greater institutional backing and governance in preventing future conflicts.
Why the future of ASEAN is ​not tied to China alone
For decades, ASEAN has been reluctant to adopt a new strong stance against Beijing for the fear of economic aftermath and retaliations that will bring down ASEAN members economically, but in future economic trends and calculations, China will no longer be providing this economic safe haven for ASEAN due to its own economic decline and this economic grip will no longer serve as the ultimate factor for ASEAN to continue this fear of upsetting Beijing to protect economic interests and survival.
By 2050, of all the three powers of Beijing, Washington and ASEAN, only Washington will emerge as the clear winner in having a younger demographic capacity for both workforce, innovation and the military, and in retaining the technological dominance and economic size superiority. China will get old faster than they get richer, while ASEAN's combined demographic potential and buying power will plateau by 2050.
As a collective economic entity, it does not project strong economic offerings or fundamentals even in the next projection until 2050. The average per capita income is roughly US$5,300 in ASEAN, and with a combined GDP of roughly US$4trillion, it still pales in comparison to both China and the United States and is roughly equal to the same amount that the United States imported every year.
In demographic terms, although an emerging sizeable population of around 650 million people, ASEAN's future workforce and young demographic groups will also slow in parallel as the region continues to age.
The region is still trapped in its middle-income trap, and its internal division both economically, politically and geographically will make it still be reliant on external sources for investments, technology and security needs.
The same goes for China, with high savings rate and continuous reliance on external exports and low internal consumption, both Beijing and ASEAN will rely on the United States as the primary economic player well into the next two to three decades. BRICS, Global South and other alternatives will not match the size, volume, innovation and reach of the US economy and its global financial architecture.
Despite ASEAN's efforts to increase its friendshoring efforts to court BRICS, GCC and other parts of Global South in revitalising its stabilising and hedging role and in increasing dependence with China, this remains a self-fulfilling utopian view driven by ignorance of current and future realities where the future of power parity still lies in the United States.
Without ever having the might and capacity for its self-defence, ASEAN will still be relying on the US security umbrella and, for as long as this fact remains, ASEAN cannot ever be masked by its own self-fulfilling fantasy of wanting to be central and non-aligned and getting the best from both worlds.
China's geographical reality of being ASEAN's most powerful neighbour has been the most pressing factor in forcing ASEAN to maintain its strategic hedging and neutrality model, with the fear of long-term aftermath of retaliations from Beijing that will affect the region's security and economic survival.
Hence, this outdated model no longer works, and with China now facing a time trap to its power relativity, this will further expose ASEAN to both direct and indirect impact from the potential of conflicts.
Even with strict neutrality, ASEAN will be dragged into all new conflicts, and lacking any resolve or backup alternatives by then, will be sitting ducks to further military impact. Even individual member states would be breaking ranks with ASEAN to safeguard their own survival, knowing that ASEAN does not provide a safety umbrella by then.
America retains its unrivalled power indicator
The United States has been the guardian of the world's peace and stability and economic and trade security that have enabled global growth and peace and ASEAN's own growth and defence assurance for more than seven decades since WWII.
American workers generate roughly seven times the output of Chinese workers on average.
Much of China's economic might is undermined by inefficiencies – one-third of China's industrial production is wasted - its total factor productivity has recently turned negative, meaning China is getting less output per unit of input each year.
China's GDP overstates its power – once waste and inefficiency are accounted for, China's effective economic power is significantly smaller, whereas the United States extracts far more value from each dollar of GDP.
The US enjoys a net power advantage over China.
China would need to outspend the United States by large margins for decades just to begin closing the gap in accumulated military capital.
Beijing must devote a huge portion of its defence spending to domestic security – at least 35 per cent of China's military budget goes to internal police, paramilitary and homeland defence.
US institutional advantages – from economic freedom to reliable rule of law – help convert its vast resources into lasting power in a way that China's system may not easily replicate.
Plus, there are hidden burdens shouldered by Beijing that dilute its net power. These include internal political strains including the costs of censorship and surveillance to suppress dissent, the risk of regional unrest or separatism within China's diverse provinces, and heavy debt loads.
In essence, China must run harder just to maintain stability: a large share of its newfound wealth goes right back into maintaining order, control, and basic needs for 1.4 billion people, which is a less efficient conversion of resources into power.
In more than 200 years of great-power history – nations which maintained strong net advantages tended to prevail, whereas states that grew in size without efficiency eventually faltered, which explained why the United States surpassed other powers in the 20th century and why the British Empire's global primacy waned.
This power advantage enjoyed by the United States debunks simplistic rise-and-fall narratives – showing that power trajectories depend on underlying quality of growth, not just size.
The often-predicted 'end of the American era' is not backed by historical precedent, as no rival currently has the combination of scale and efficiency to overtake the United States.
The reality is that, as Michael Buckley and Hal Brands argue, hegemonic wars often erupt not when a rising power is still gaining strength, but when it peaks and fears imminent decline.
In the Thucydides Trap scenario: rather than simply a rising power (Athens) scared of a ruling power (Sparta), Athens itself might have been a 'peaking power' that chose war fearing its own decline.
In this case, China as a peaking power (where most indicators now show that its power is almost peaking and on the verge of relative decline), might increase conflict risks fearing its own decline and the need to achieve its 2049 vision of its 100-Year Marathon.
For decades, ASEAN has been reluctant to adopt a new strong stance against Beijing for the fear of economic aftermath and retaliations, but China will no longer be providing this economic safe haven for ASEAN.
By all power indicators, the United States will remain unmatched in military and economic prowess and influence. ASEAN does have a choice now, to choose between an economically and demographically weaker China and a higher risk of uncertainties caused by a peaking China and a weakening China from now, or to side with the proven global stability and assurance for security and new economic transition offered by American technologies, markets and military.
The choice is entirely ASEAN's to make: create new security alliances now and jettison itself from the trap of its old mantra, or to see its own self-trap deepening its risks to be sitting duck to further economic stagnation and decline and be dragged to an even deeper abyss of security vulnerability.
-- BERNAMA
Collins Chong Yew Keat is Foreign Affairs, Strategy and Security Analyst with Universiti Malaya.