By taking the helm of ASEAN, will Indonesia make a third voice heard?
Indonesian President Joko Widodo during the virtual Asean-China Leaders Summit.
He is here in Jakarta, Monday, November 22, 2021. AP - Indonesian Presidential Palace
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
This Sunday, Indonesia takes the lead in ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
What will be the main challenges for the alliance in 2023 at regional and international level?
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ASEAN brings together ten member states and soon 11, with the upcoming integration of
East Timor
.
This is an important and rare event for the association because the last time a country joined
ASEAN
was Cambodia in 1999. The second major challenge for the bloc is
the Burmese question
.
Since the military coup in February 2021, the country has been plunged into chaos.
Will the association manage, under Indonesian leadership, to find a common position to put an end to the violence?
The question remains.
The other challenge for Asean, at the international level this time, is the posture that the association will take in the face of Sino-American rivalry.
Torn between security dependence vis-à-vis the United States and economic dependence vis-à-vis China, member countries must find the right balance and circumvent these difficulties even though they are subject to very strong pressure from both powers.
Two large blocks, but not only
“
What we see emerging today is this rivalry between the two big blocs, the United States and China.
But there is also a sort of soft underbelly and a very large number of countries which do not want to be drawn into this rivalry, which do not want to be exploited by one or other of the great powers and which want to affirm their singularity. .
Asean is part of this group, and Indonesia is particularly inclined to push this posture
, ”analyzes Françoise Nicolas, researcher and director of the Asia Center of the French Institute for International Relations (Ifri).
As a regional bloc, ASEAN has an important role to play in global geopolitical reorganization.
“
In reality, there is a desire to lead his own way.
It is the maintenance of multilateralism, and as far as Indonesia and Asean are concerned, in its wake, it is to make the voice of the
global south heard
, of a kind of
"third world"
.
Third world, in the sense of a world different from the two other blocs or the two other great powers
”, continues Françoise Nicolas.
Indonesia has a role to play
What direction will the bloc take under the leadership of Joko Widodo, the Indonesian president who rose to international stature with the successful
G20 summit in Bali
last November?
Can we expect major changes?
“
I think Indonesia may have a role to play, and they played that role in the G20.
Since finally, within the G20, in the final declaration after the Bali summit, what was heard was that there was another path than the Chinese path, on the one hand, or the American one, of the 'other.
So, despite everything, there is a possibility of involving other actors in global governance,
” continues Ms. Nicolas.
The final challenge for Asean countries is that of post-pandemic economic recovery.
Even if in a very degraded world economic climate, the Association is doing well, the difficulties that the Chinese giant is going through will not make its task any easier.
Consolidating the recovery therefore looks more difficult than expected.
Asia is the region of the world that can do relatively well from an economic point of view.
Françoise Nicolas, Researcher and Director of the Asia Center at Ifri
Jelena Tomic
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ASEAN
Indonesia
Joko Widodo