🍚 The Year Ahead - Asean Settles Into Jakarta

Hello friends!

Thank you so much to everyone who has taken me up on the New Year 23% off offer. Always a great way to start the year with so many people giving a boost, really appreciate it. The offer will run to the end of the week so if you’re considering a paid subscription for the year ahead, take advantage here:

Today’s a bit of a disparate look at Asean as a bloc and Indonesia’s leadership in the new year. It’s always hard to feel anything but defeated when it comes to Asean so I found it super handy to sit down and think about what Asean looks like in 2023 and some of the genuinely exciting developments. I know a lot of readers also swing wildly between loving and despising Asean, so let me know what you think in the comments.

A quick note: we’ll follow up with Myanmar more in-depth on Friday. This is very much a look at it through an Asean lens and not the final word.

Also, do you think the rice bowl emoji in the title is a little too subtle? For years I’ve thought Unicode need to do an Asean flag. Why do the Europeans get all their cute little EU and NATO flags, it’s not fair!

See you Friday!Erin Cook

🇧🇳 Farewell, Lim Jock Hoi

Brunei’s Lim Jock Hoi headed home at the end of December after wrapping a very dramatic five years as Secretary-General at Asean. The Scoop had a great Q&A with him on his way out the door touching on the biggest issues during his tenure — the pandemic, Myanmar, economic cooperation. It focuses very much on the good side of things but it’s always good to remember there are a lot of upsides to what Asean manages in the region and that ought to be appreciated sometimes. 

Someone from Cambodia is supposed to take up the job now but I literally cannot work out who. Has it not been announced? Or am I silly?

🇮🇩 It’s Indonesia’s time to shine

This is a tough year for Indonesia to take the lead on Asean, I think. Last year, when Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen got sick of the criticism of Asean’s slow response to Myanmar he effectively said to wait until Indonesia takes the chairmanship. As a country with recent experience of pulling itself out of a military-backed dictatorship, Indonesia’s leadership vocally feels it has something to share with Myanmar. 

It’s also an easy conflict — that is, does not interfere with President Joko Widodo’s primary goal of attracting investment into the country — to take the lead on. Global interest in Myanmar’s conflict was already dwindling before Russia invaded Ukraine just a few weeks after the first anniversary of the military seizing power, effectively guaranteeing Myanmar would stay confined to the Asia pages of the world’s media. 

The crisis has been intractable for near on a year. Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi lost an ally with the departure of Malaysia’s foreign minister Saifuddin Abdullah following the election there. He had been the region’s loudest voice in effecting change in Naypyitaw and was leaning towards pushing the region to move beyond the failed Five Point Consensus. 

I’ve always had a lot of faith in these pages for Bu Retno, but this is a challenge bigger than even her. Taking up the chair at Asean won’t change that (though, as discussed below, Timor-Leste may prove very friendly) since everyone has got to be on side. 

Yose Rizal Damuri, the Executive Director at Jakarta’s influential CSIS, reckons it is time for Indonesia to start swinging: “All this time Asean has been restricted to the non-interference principle, therefore Asean must have a clearer proposal, whether that means putting more pressure on Myanmar … or, if necessary, expel Myanmar from Asean.” Benar News, rightfully, calls a floated expulsion “wishful thinking,” noting last month’s weird summit in which Mekong states met with the junta’s foreign minister in Bangkok. Still, I always like to see the conversation pushed forward.  

A compelling one late November from Htet Aung, formerly of the Institute for Economics and Peace, for East Asia Forum. Is it time to recognise the National Unity Government as the governing body of Myanmar? It’s a question floated since the early days of the junta, particularly from within Myanmar’s activist spaces, but two years on and with the military hold wavering is it worth revisiting in this new year? This one came before the aforementioned weird summit so it’s even less likely at this stage than in November but I’m personally in favour of it. 

🇹🇱 Make room for Timor-Leste

Timor-Leste securing full membership to the bloc could be the “centrepiece” of Indonesia’s time at the helm, write Teesta Prakash and Gatra Priyandita for the Strategist. Indonesia has long pushed Dili in joining the grouping despite resistance, notably from Singapore over economic development concerns. Last year, Timor-Leste cleared a major hurdle “when it was able to get other member states to agree in principle to accept its application for membership.” It’s easier to get into heaven than it is to get into Asean, Timor-Leste’s President Jose Ramos Horta quipped last year. Let’s see how much further it gets now. 

Asean may get just as much out of it as Timor itself. I’m a big fan of this very thoughtful one from Hunter Marston for the East Asia Forum. He lays out a three-pointer case on Timor-Leste’s membership as a very hopeful and re-energising moment for the bloc as it goes through (or, rather, is stuck) in this muddy moment. Timor-Leste brings with it a lot of credibility in strengthening Asean’s democratic credentials. The country has always punched above its weight in regional rankings on the strength of its democratic institutions and will, in Marston’s words, add a “counterweight to the group’s authoritarian majority.” This is particularly helpful when it comes to Myanmar, on which Ramos Horta has been swinging since day one. 

This will be an interesting time for Indonesia. The post-Independence relationship between the two countries is deeply intriguing and while Indonesia can be Timor’s most vocal advocate, there are certainly voices that remain resentful of the conflict. 

All aboard for the South China Sea

Remember the South China Sea? That big-time dropped off. A Chinese jet came within metres of a US recon aircraft last week. Get over it, China said, calling the US’s complaints about the near-miss “slander and hype.” And that’s the juiciest it’s been for a while. With China focused on sabre-rattling across the Taiwan Strait and the US leading the charge in NATO, the South China Sea definitely fell a few spots in 2022. 

Could that be for the best? Collin Koh of NTU writes that there were plenty of low-level biffs last year in the contested waters, but the meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and US counterpart Joe Biden in Bali on the sidelines of the G20 may have balanced that out. He adds that given much of the region — and China itself, of course — will be spending this year addressing domestic issues in the aftermath of the pandemic, the South China Sea won’t be a high priority and the Code of Conduct pfft, not even worth writing about anymore.

All that said, Philippines President Bongbong Marcos is visiting China this week and I will be closely watching to see what comes of that. Marcos is “inching away from the extreme pivot to China” made under predecessor Rodrigo Duterte, Renato Cruz De Castro of De La Salle University told Reuters.