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INTRODUCTION
ASEAN Wonk: Welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast where we bring you expert insights and regional perspectives on Southeast Asia and Indo-Pacific geopolitics and geoeconomics. I'm your host, Dr. Prashanth Parameswaran. And if you haven't already, do make sure you're subscribed to the ASEAN Wonk platform at www.aseanwonk.com so you don't miss any of our full posts.
Our guest today is Dr. Pushpanathan Sundram, who previously served as a former ASEAN deputy secretary general and has over thirty years of experience working across regional issues. We will start talking about ASEAN's newly-released vision out to 2045 and evolving initiatives out to the next round of regional summitry later this year. Be sure to tune in as we go through a range of other subjects, including geopolitical flashpoint management in Southeast Asia as well as geoeconomic priorities amid developments like tariff wars, BRICS enlargement and ASEAN-GCC-China summitry.
Note: The transcript that follows the above free clip preview has been lightly edited for clarity and organized into sections for ease of quick browsing. For all ASEAN Wonk Podcast episodes, full video and audio podcasts, along with edited and sectioned transcripts as well as block quotes, will be a premium product for our paying subscribers, but we will include a short free transcript preview and a clip for all readers to maintain accessibility. Paying subscribers can find the rest of the full transcript and the full video podcast right below the paywall. If you have not already, do consider subscribing, and, if you have already done so and like what you see and hear, do consider forwarding this to others as well who may be interested. Thank you for your support as always!
INSIDER’S PERSPECTIVE ON NEW ASEAN VISION 2045
ASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the podcast Nathan, and I wanted to start, if we could, on ASEAN's new vision 2045, which was publicly released in late May alongside events tied to the summit. As you well know, this is something that's been in the works for a few years already even though it's just been publicly released. As somebody who has been working with ASEAN from the inside, including as deputy secretary general, you've seen the trajectory of this organization up to date. How would you grade or assess this new Vision 2045 that was released within ASEAN's broader trajectory?
Dr. Pushpanathan Sundram: Thank you, Prashanth, for the invitation to this podcast. I'm pleased to talk about something that's very close to me, ASEAN. The ASEAN Vision 2045, I would say, is an ambitious plan for twenty years, but it's backed by structure. I was involved in drafting the first ASEAN Economic Community Blueprint. We have put in a lot of things there, but we realized that ASEAN will need time to actually implement. So this time, they are really looking at it in a more in-depth perspective in terms of looking at the vision plus the structures needed. In fact, for the economic community itself, they have five-year plans, strategic plans. They've come out with strategic plans for all the communities under this Vision 2045. So the political security community, economic community, social cultural community, and the master plan on the connectivity aspect of it. So we look at the AEC and connectivity strategic plan as they call it now. They don't call it a blueprint strategic plan anymore. They are five years. The others are ten years.
So each of the plans have a number of goals and measures. I counted around total all the four strategic plans will have about five hundred measures or so. So it's quite a detailed plan. The thing is if you look at an ASEAN plan itself, what is important to realize is that sometimes it's aspirational. Sometimes it's very broad. But I think what it needs is the depth. So even if you look at the various plans, right, the 2025 plan, the secretary general actually mentioned that the political security blueprint has now achieved 99.6 percent, economic blueprint around 97 percent, and then the sociocultural about 99 percent, and the master plan on ASEAN connectivity 83.9 percent. These figures look very good actually. But if you really look at it, I would say, yes, they may have implemented it from the broad sense of all the measures. But when you really go into the depth of it, that is where the problem is. Because if you don't really tackle the depth, then you will not see much change. So I think that's where the crux of the matter is when you look at the blueprints.
“The thing is if you look at an ASEAN plan itself, what is important to realize is that sometimes it's aspirational. Sometimes it's very broad. But I think what it needs is the depth.”
Now let me just give you some examples. For example, ASEAN has done very well on the tariff side, reducing tariffs. So, 99 percent of all tariffs are now down. But if you look at the non-tariff barriers, it continues to be a challenge, I mean, especially, say, in the agricultural sector, there are still high tariffs. Now on the political side, the crisis response to Myanmar or the Rohingya crisis was slow and constrained by consensus. And then the human rights declaration remains nonbinding, and there is, I would say, lack of effective enforcement mechanisms. So if you really look at the 2045 plan, it’s very good, but the weakness will be in the enforcement and timely action. So this is an area that I hope ASEAN will look at when they develop the structure to implement this twenty years plan.
EVOLVING APPROACH TO REGIONAL STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT AND PROGRESS
ASEAN Wonk: Right. This is the first ASEAN twenty-year vision – the previous vision was ten years. But as you said, they have these strategic plans on different timelines, so they can be updated from time to time. How does this relate to the fast-changing world that we are facing in right now? It does seem like there's an attempt to balance responsiveness with the broader vision so that ASEAN is able to stay on track for the long term. What are your thoughts on this given that this is something that ASEAN has been grappling with since the time you were there?
Dr. Pushpanathan Sundram: Yeah. So we had previously what we called Vision 2020, if you recall. So that was also a very long vision. And then in between, we had the AEC blueprint and the various blueprints and so on. So I remember my time, the blueprint was seven years implementation, 2009 to 2015. And then we had a ten-year plan. Now we have a twenty-year plan. One, it shows that ASEAN will need more time actually to implement. Actually, if you really want to implement it in-depth, I think it will take time. So it's good that on the economic community as well as the connectivity aspects, they have a shorter term five-year plan because things are changing so fast, and there's so much economic uncertainty. So having these five-year plans, strategic plans, I think the economic one is going to be 2026 to 2030 or so. So that's going to be very important, actually. So every five years, they relook at what's happening because I think ASEAN cannot work in isolation by itself. It has to really look at what's going on out there. So I think that's important to have that kind of short plan, and then they make adjustments.
So under the new 2045 plan, they have these implementation mechanisms like the annual progress reports, the midterm review in 2030, and the final assessment in 2045. Then they will create some dashboard, and I think external evaluation teams will look at it and track and verify it. So I think they're putting in those mechanisms so they can track the progress.
ADJUSTING TO GLOBAL GEOPOLITICAL CONTESTATION
ASEAN Wonk: I agree with the point you made earlier about ASEAN needing to adjust to a fast-changing world, and Malaysia Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim mentioned at the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore that the region has to hold its own ground amid a series of challenges including tariff wars and U.S.-China competition via what he called active non-alignment. He has referenced some of the measures being taken, including the first-ever ASEAN-China-GCC summit and a new ASEAN geoeconomics task force. What is your sense of how Southeast Asia and ASEAN are holding the ground in this changing world?
Dr. Pushpanathan Sundram: Yeah. I think ASEAN will be facing a lot of challenges. As you know, ASEAN centrality is going to be still very important for all of us. So I think ASEAN will have to adopt a strategy where it's working with the world in a sense.
Like the U.S. tariffs. ASEAN as a whole has decided not to retaliate but to cooperate and work with the US. So I think that’s a good strategy in the sense that we want to see how we can further progress in terms of the tariff negotiation. So each country will do its part. The aim is to work out an amicable solution bilaterally with each of the ASEAN countries and the US. At the same time, I think this is an opportunity for ASEAN to really look internally. So, one of the things that is going to be very important is this upgrade of the ASEAN trade in goods agreement, ATIGA. ASEAN has learned from the COVID pandemic situation that intra-ASEAN trade is so important. So during the COVID pandemic, the intra-ASEAN trade was a buffer. So I think they recognize this.
“Like the US tariffs…I think this is an opportunity for ASEAN to really look internally…”
So ASEAN is now concluding the protocol, expected to conclude, I think, by end of the next summit possibly early 2026. The focus is going to be on tariff simplification, non-tariff barrier reduction, rules of origin, streamlining, and so on. So I think that's going to be important. That will enhance intra-ASEAN trade, which is still hovering around, say, 22 to 25 percent. It's not growing. So one of the reasons it’s not growing is because of non-tariff barriers, then the streamlining of the custom procedures and so on. So I think that will be very important, the ATIGA upgrade.
Then I think you're also aware about the Digital Economic Framework Agreement (DEFA) that ASEAN is looking at. From what I understand, the final negotiations are underway. This is going to be a very important agreement, actually, because it will cover data flows, cybersecurity, digital ID, e-commerce, fintech, and taxation, for example. So outside other regions, other minilaterals are also looking at it, so it's important for ASEAN to really work on this and actually get it done soon. Hopefully by this year or next year, we will be able to move forward with this particular DEFA.
Then, of course, looking at the minilaterals itself, there are so many of them mushrooming. It's how ASEAN will deal with that. So I think ASEAN has really looked at it. The second GCC summit, is actually one of the responses because ASEAN is trying to see how it can work with GCC in terms of tourism, trade, investment, and so on. In fact, I think two years ago, GCC mooted the idea of a free trade agreement (FTA). And ASEAN was lukewarm then, but now I understand that after the summits, they have taken a position to seriously study whether there could be an FTA.
And then, of course, they had this first GCC, ASEAN, and China summit. I think that's another important summit because we have, for example, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership there. China is there. ASEAN is there. And there is also talk about whether they can expand the RCEP to include the GCC countries, which I think is not a bad idea because GCC is a growing region, and they're interested in ASEAN. So there could be something that ASEAN officials can look at.
So I think there's a lot of opportunities out there for ASEAN to tap. I think what is important is making use of the ASEAN platform. We have, I think, very good platforms like the ASEAN post ministerial conferences where we engage all the dialogue partners. Then we have the plus one summits and the plus ten summits. So these are areas where ASEAN can use the platform, maintain its centrality, and then work through that in terms of looking at how it can kind of further engage our dialogue partners.
Most of our dialogue partners, the main ones have FTAs with us, free trade agreements. I mean, ASEAN has already been working on upgrading the China FTA. Now I think they have also made, some recommendation to Japan to look at similar thing, for Korea, they wanted to do it next year, I think they've advanced to this year. So ASEAN is actually taking effort in terms of looking at how to upgrade the FTAs, how to improve the ASEAN free trade area, and then how to link up with other regions. I mean, look at other FTAs outside Asia. GCC could be one. They're also engaging Latin America and so on. So I think this is the way to go. So while we look at dealing with the US on the tariffs, ASEAN is looking internally as well as with his partners in terms of, growth.
STRATEGIES FOR MANAGING TRUMP TARIFFS
ASEAN Wonk: And you mentioned the tariff negotiations. We’ve seen ASEAN take a regional position in terms of not retaliating, but we’re also not surprisingly seeing bilateral negotiations with the United States because all these countries also need to engage in that format. What is your sense of how ASEAN as a grouping and the bilateral track are actually balanced or calibrated between the Southeast Asian countries?
Dr. Pushpanathan Sundram: Yeah. This has been, I would say, a historical problem. Even if you look at the FTAs itself, right, when ASEAN negotiates, we are not negotiating as ASEAN as one. So if we look at the FTAs, there are ten different lists. Each country will require a list, and then the dialogue partner will provide a list. So that's how ASEAN has always been functioning. So I'm not surprised that they want to go into a bilateral negotiation because each of them have different strengths, and they have different advantages in terms of the US. Thailand, for example, is one of the major exporters of food agriculture products. Singapore is different, actually. So you cannot have a unified ASEAN position on that. So what they have done, I think, is correct in terms of saying that, generally, they agree that all of us will cooperate with the US. We're not retaliating. And then each of them are actually negotiating it separately. But that's how we are set up, actually. So this is not feasible for ASEAN to go into a regional kind of US negotiation.
The proposal for a US ASEAN summit was good. I hope the US will consider that, or something similar to that maybe at the minister's level. So that will be a good platform for both sides to really talk about one of the big issues, because I think ASEAN considers US as one of the major trade partners. The US is still the number one investor in the region. So I think it's important to work with the US on this.
LOOKING AHEAD TO 2026: FLASHPOINT MANAGEMENT AND DATAPOINTS TO WATCH
ASEAN Wonk: I wanted to move our conversation forward to what we might expect in 2026 and beyond within ASEAN. In terms of the flashpoint management picture, we’re going to be seeing major developments with Myanmar’s election expected as early as December this year and the South China Sea being front and center as we head to the Philippines ASEAN chairmanship and arbitral tribunal ruling next year. Given your experience working within ASEAN, what are you expecting on both of these flashpoints in the rest of 2025 and heading into 2026, along with other datapoints to watch?
Dr. Pushpanathan Sundram: Okay…
[Note: This is the end of a free preview podcast, with the full version in an earlier post published on July 24, 2025 available to our paying subscribers. This is not meant to serve as new content and is part of our free preview content within the dedicated website podcast section].
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