Malaysia ASEAN Chairmanship 2025 and Anwar Foreign Policy

Plus sanctions chatter; U.S.-China competition realities; critical minerals boost; new AI talk; coming trade pact; corruption wars and much, much more.

Greetings to new readers and welcome all to the latest edition of the weekly ASEAN Wonk BulletBrief! If you haven’t already, you can upgrade to a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year below to receive full posts by inserting your email address and then selecting an annual or monthly option. You can visit this page for more on pricing for institutions, groups as well as discounts. For current paid subscribers, please make sure you’re hitting the “view entire message” prompt if it comes up at the end of a post to see the full version.

For this iteration of ASEAN Wonk BulletBrief, we are looking at:

• Assessing the geopolitical and geoeconomic significance of Malaysia’s coming ASEAN chairmanship based on conversations on the sidelines of a security conference in Kuala Lumpur, and its wider regional and global implications;

• Mapping of regional developments, such as new cross-regional sanctions chatter and artificial island fears;

• Charting evolving geopolitical, geoeconomic and security trends such as U.S.-China competition realities; critical minerals boost and corruption wars;

• Tracking and analysis of industry developments and quantitative indicators including new artificial intelligence talk; coming trade pact; wealth disparities and more

• And much more! ICYMI, check out our book review earlier this week on the future of Indo-Pacific civil-military relations.

This Week’s WonkCount: 2,012 words (~ 10 minutes)

Cross-Regional Sanctions Chatter; Artificial Island Fears & More

Sources: New Straits Times; Malaysiakini; The Star; PCO Philippines; PNA; Xinhua; Singapore MFA; VNA; The Nation; Jakarta Post

Alignment Dynamics; Subregional Geopolitics & New Flashpoint Thinking

• “[S]outheast Asian states are not engaging in all-out deterrence or hard military balancing in response to China’s rise…and the increasing reliance on military capabilities by the United States and China…is not conducive for regional security and stability,” notes the introduction of a series of articles published in the journal Contemporary Southeast Asia on the domestic determinants of Southeast Asia ties with both China and the United States. The cases analyzed include Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand (link).

Source: ASEAN Secretariat

• “[T]he way Cambodia’s government has communicated its intents to build the canal is creating diplomatic friction with its neighbor Vietnam. Regional tensions and environmental impacts of the project will be reduced if Cambodia follows the letter of the 1995 Mekong Agreement,” notes a new piece published by the Stimson Center on Cambodia’s pursuit of a China-backed proposed Funan Techo canal project. The piece advocates prior consultation processes to provide sufficient time to comprehensively assess canal impacts, mitigation changes and possible alternatives (link).

Source: Stimson Center

• “The existing paradigm governing Thailand's relationship with Myanmar is bogged down by protocol, stuck in bureaucratic silos and too heavily reliant on traditional security agencies,” notes a critique of the current Thai government’s approach to Myanmar written by current parliamentarian and former prime ministerial candidate of the Move Forward Party Pita Limjaroenrat published by Nikkei Asia. The piece advocates for several steps, including a multistakeholder mediation process; the appointment of a designated special envoy; a more comprehensive humanitarian aid approach that includes ethnic organizations and armed groups; as well as a new conditional escrow arrangement for Thailand’s natural gas supply for Myanmar (link).

Source: Global New Light of Myanmar

Malaysia ASEAN Chairmanship 2025 and Anwar Foreign Policy

Source: PMO Malaysia

What’s Behind It

• Malaysia continues to edge closer to assuming the annually-rotating ASEAN chair for 2025 after Laos this year. ASEAN chairmanships officially begin at the start of a new year to foster the notion of there being ‘one chair at a time.’ But in practice, staffing, preparatory meetings and handovers take months of behind-the-scenes work. In Malaysia’s case, the official launch of its ASEAN chairmanship preparatory meetings was kicked off by Anwar in January¹. In recent weeks, meetings have continued to take shape both among select lead ministries within Malaysia under designated issue domains as well as between Malaysia and the ASEAN Secretariat². Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim has also continued to emphasize the importance of ASEAN and multilateralism more generally³. “He’s consistent on this one though people focus more on Gaza and big powers,” a Malaysian official told ASEAN Wonk earlier this month when asked about how the ASEAN agenda would fit into Anwar’s foreign policy outlook⁴.

Select Key Recent Developments on Malaysia’s Coming ASEAN Agenda and Foreign Policy Outlook

Source: Government statements; Graphic by ASEAN Wonk

• Malaysia’s 2025 ASEAN chairmanship will spotlight the country’s regional leadership role despite recent challenges. Malaysia has historically shaped key ASEAN efforts to manage shifting major power dynamics and advance community-building among diverse states. This included the 1971 declaration of a Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) amid U.S. and British withdrawal from Southeast Asia; the development of the East Asia Summit in the 2000s which cemented ASEAN’s role as the leading Indo-Pacific diplomatic convenor; as well as the last decade-long vision for an ASEAN community during its last chair year in 2015⁵. In the past decade, playing this leadership role has been complicated by the country’s more divisive domestic politics and a more contested geopolitical environment. Anwar himself has suggested that Southeast Asian states need to urgently shape a more diverse, interconnected world order through various steps including reinforcing ASEAN mechanisms, engaging other subregions and leveraging ties with both the United States and China⁶.

Why It Matters

• Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship year will be a key test of the extent to which the country is able to turn its influence into traction. Officials note that Malaysia stands out among Southeast Asian states due to its sheer breadth of interests across the global geopolitical faultlines stressing ASEAN today — as one of four formal South China Sea claimants; a top refugee destination for Rohingya refugees from Myanmar; a vocal supporter of the Palestinian cause with diverse Middle East relationships as well as an active engager of both the United States and China to advance its own middlepowermanship⁷. Malaysia’s chairmanship agenda is also helped by having a prime minister like Anwar who has an active interest in foreign policy and has had a decades-long reputation as a well-connected thinker. At the same time, this breadth of interests and intensity of attention can be a double-edged sword, as evidenced by the outsized role that the Gaza war has played in influencing U.S.-Malaysia relations despite some bright spots in other areas. And even more active ASEAN chairs can be hamstrung by the lowest common denominator tendency within the grouping due to inbuilt norms like consensus-based decision-making⁸.

• Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship year also raises the critical question of how we may see particular issues evolve into 2025 and 2026. A closer look at some of these areas provides at least a sense of what we might expect (see table below, along with more on future prospects in the “Where It’s Headed” section. Paid subscribers can read on thereafter to the remaining sections of our weekly ASEAN Wonk BulletBrief).

Select Evolving ASEAN Priorities to Watch Under Malaysia’s Coming Chair Agenda