AEI Insights

NORTHEAST ASIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA: THE GEOPOLITICAL NEXUS IN INDO-PACIFIC SECURITY

K.S. Nathan — 2025-05-07

This article focuses on the strategic (economic, political and security) linkages that govern interactions between the major and regional powers in the Indo-Pacific region. It argues that the principal drives of Indo-Pacific security are the strategic significance of the region in terms of its geopolitical location, its economic and demographic characteristic which attract the attention and engagement of the primary and secondary actors involved, and the conflict and cooperation scenarios that link Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia. The paper also argues that that a key and inevitable component of Indo-Pacific security is the strategic role of the United States, its relations with all key actors of the Indo-Pacific region and its overwhelming military presence and projection capabilities that cannot be ignored by all actors especially rising China and its perceived threats to U.S. regional and global interests. The paper concludes that despite the existing superpower tensions and rivalries, there is a role for deterrence and balance of power strategies to mitigate existing territorial and resource competitions as in the South China Sea, with ASEAN playing a moderating and interlocutory role in the effort to maintain regional order and stability, thus directly and indirectly impacting Indo-Pacific security.

US-CHINA COMPETITION AND ASEAN UNITY: WHY ECONOMIC RESILIENCE MATTERS

Peter Brian M. Wang — 2025-05-07

Long has ASEAN championed regionalism based on the ASEAN Way i.e., neutrality, consensus, non-interference, inclusivity, non-intervention. Testament to its success is the fact that much of the institutional framework in East Asia - East Asia Summit (EAS), the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the ASEAN Plus One mechanisms, ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), and ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMMPlus) – operates along the key principles of the ASEAN Way. However, the ongoing competition between the US and China is upending the liberal world order, and there are concerns that the ASEAN-centred regional order will be impacted as well. Despite China’s or the US’ rhetoric on the matter, the reality is that ASEAN finds itself increasingly side-lined and powerless in the face of rising tensions prompting the belief that ASEAN has been most effective in times of peace, not so much in times of conflict. Moreover, the ongoing conflict has been divisive. Regional powers are realigning themselves with either superpower. Even within ASEAN, the Philippines has strengthened their alliance with the US, compelled to it by China's growing assertiveness and its own growing exasperation with ASEAN’s lack of support for it, as its members continue to maintain good relations with both China and the US, pursuing their respective national agendas, while cloaking it under ASEAN’s principles of neutrality and non-alignment. Their respective positions largely stem from the complex relationship that individual ASEAN members have with these two great powers. This is certainly reflected in their economic relations with either power. An analysis of trade and investment data finds that the economic relations of ASEAN members with the US and China have strengthened in an unbalanced manner, that leaves ASEAN susceptible to the risk of internal division. One way to address this is by enhancing ASEAN’s resilience,
by strengthening economic integration and regional imbalance, thereby enhancing the importance of ASEAN to
its members, whether as a market or a source of investments and development. This can contribute to strengthening ASEAN unity and allowing it to take on a more robust and cohesive position on matters of regional
importance.

MALAYSIA-REPUBLIC OF KOREA-ASEAN RELATIONS AND THE IMPROVEMENT OF INTER KOREAN RELATIONS

Geetha Govindasamy — 2025-05-07

Despite various summits, inter-Korean relations have stalled since 2019. While this is not something new, but the Democratic Republic of Korea’s aggressive expansion of its nuclear and missile programs threatens the regional stability of the Asia Pacific region. Without reviving inter-Korean interaction, there will be no path towards North Korea’s eventual denuclearization process. Though the Association of Southeast Asian nations (ASEAN) is not directly involved in managing the denuclearization issue on the Korean peninsula, the article argues that the Association has a role to play in facilitating inter-Korean ties. As a regional organization, ASEAN has the capability as well as the platform to revive inter-Korean relations. It's likely that ASEAN is the only regional institution that is trusted by both North and South Korea. Therefore, it can effectively play a role to ease or reduce the trust deficit Pyongyang faces with Seoul. The article examines the strategies that could be employed by ASEAN as well as Malaysia, the ASEAN Chair for the year 2025, in persuading North Korea to revive talks with the South. Nonetheless, it should be noted that ASEAN can only play the role of a facilitator if both the ROK and DPRK accept, and the major powers support it.

Keywords: Keywords: regional organization, ASEAN Chair, Inter-Korean Relations, facilitator, multilateralism

THE MYANMAR CRISIS: INTERROGATING THE LIMITS OF ASEAN’S CONSTRUCTIVE ENGAGEMENT AND NEW PATHWAYS TO PEACE

Johan Saravanamuttu — 2025-05-07

The paper is structured in three parts. First, it presents briefly the history of the concept of Constructive Engagement (CE) which emerged as a foil for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)’s to address the Cambodian conflict. CE was premised on ASEAN’s diplomatic culture of norm-setting and norm socialization via the ASEAN Way. The paper posits that ASEAN, as a regional entity, embeds inter-state constitutive and prescriptive norms with an imperative to regularly seek new modalities of intramural conflict management. ASEAN’s plurality and diversity of membership predisposes it to medium and long-term processes of norm-setting as the means to address regime legitimacy and accountability within the constraints of the ASEAN Way. An obvious question arises as to whether the Myanmar crisis presents itself as the extreme or limiting case to date of the efficacy of ASEAN’s CE approach as a subset of its diplomatic culture to manage recalcitrant states. ASEAN's current engagement via its Five-Point Consensus approach to deal with the Myanmar crisis has yielded few positive outcomes four years after the military coup of 2021. The paper examines Malaysia’s active engagement with Myanmar under the CE rubric dating to Myanmar’s membership of ASEAN in 1997, which it advocated. In more recent years, Malaysia has also borne the brunt of the massive impact of Rohingya migration to its shores as a fallout of the Myanmar crisis. This predisposes Malaysia to play an important role, especially in 2025 as Chair of ASEAN. Finally, the paper explores a constructivist pathway out of the Myanmar impasse for ASEAN. It argues that innovative processes beyond ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus approach to the Myanmar crisis are needed to return Myanmar to a situation of sovereign accountability. Beyond state-to-state engagements, non-state actors could also play a significant role regionally on respective national terrains. In its current situation of civil war, this calls for ASEAN to recognise and engage with all the key stakeholders of the Myanmar Resistance.

CONTESTED WATERS, CONTESTED FUTURES: THE SOUTH CHINA SEA SECURITY COMPLEX AND MALAYSIA'S SABAH DILEMMA

Gayathri A Muruga Subramaniam — 2025-05-07

Non-traditional security risks, including smuggling, human trafficking, arms proliferation, and kidnapping-for-ransom (KFR), are highly concentrated in Sabah due to its strategic location along the Tri-Border Area (TBA) and the Sulu Sea. These threats are further exacerbated by regional geopolitical tensions. Porous maritime borders, limited intelligence sharing, and evolving transnational crime networks continue to challenge Malaysia’s enforcement measures, despite initiatives such as the Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESSCOM) and ASEAN-led security frameworks. Applying the Regional Security Complex Theory (RSCT), this paper examines how multilateral cooperation, external geopolitical pressures, and regional interdependencies shape Malaysia’s security governance. Findings indicate that a unilateral approach is insufficient, necessitating enhanced maritime surveillance, stronger regional security cooperation, and socioeconomic strategies to address the root causes of crime. By integrating security enforcement with sustainable development and regional diplomacy, Malaysia can strengthen its governance in Sabah and reinforce its role as a key security actor in Southeast Asia.