When the whole world is looking on the ongoing century as “Asian Century’, South East Asian (SEA) countries are drawing great attention as they constitute one of the most vibrant regions of the continent.

Undoubtedly SEA countries have today become one of the major theatres of geo-political and geo-economic cooperation as well as competition. “South East Asia: 2023 Survey Report published by the ASEAN Studies Centre at the ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute highlights major challenges facing the region.   

Going by the report, unemployment and recession are the biggest challenge facing the region (59.5% respondents) followed by widening socio-economic gaps and rising income disparity (41.9%), increased military tensions arising from potential flash points and domestic political instability (35.6%).

BIGGEST CHALLENGE

It is quite understandable that majority of South East Asians (59.5%) see unemployment and economic recession consequent upon the pandemic last year as the biggest challenge. The region faced the impact of major geo-political and economic developments such as invasion of Ukraine by Russia which sparked an increase in energy and food prices and slowed down economic recovery. While people surveyed appeared much concerned about rising inflationary pressure and cost-of-living, unemployment and recessionary concerns were overwhelming, particularly more elevated in Indonesia (70.2% respondents), Cambodia (69.4%) and Malaysia (63.7%).

Most of the respondents found climate change and more intense and frequent weather events as the second biggest challenge (57.1%). In fact, an overwhelming number of Philippine respondents (76.8%) put this challenge even at a higher ranking than unemployment and recession.

Besides the Philippines, climate change is also the city-state Singapore’s top challenge (60.1%). Brunei and Vietnam also expressed similarly strong worries about the climate threat at 74.2% and 64.7% respectively. Climate change is also Malaysia’s and Indonesia’s second-ranked challenge at 61.3% and 60.3% respectively.

Widening socio-economic gaps and rising income disparity and military tension from potential flashpoints is the third most important challenge of the region, with 41.9% respondents saying so regarding both the challenges. The concern about income inequality shown by the SEA respondents is in line with UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Report 2022, which concluded that income inequality within countries have increased by about one percent in emerging market and developing countries, reversing the gains made at the beginning of this millennium.

Much to the surprise of analysts, some of the responses in the survey were not in synch with real life observations such as a very small number of respondents (11.3%) believing terror and deteriorating human rights conditions (16.5%) as major challenges. It may be due to bias arising in the survey from nationality and individual country’s experiences, rather than reflecting the regional perspective. Out of the total respondents surveyed the highest numbers were from Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam in that order.

Security threats, given the active flashpoints in the region, are also seen by the respondents as a major challenge. Here also individual country’s exposure to such threats has been a major determinant of responses. While other countries had a tone down on the issue, Brunei and Vietnam feel most acutely about the security threats arising from potential conflict over flash points such as the South China Sea, Taiwan Strait and Korean Peninsula.

ASEAN EFFECTIVENESS – ERODED

ASEAN over a period of time has seen erosion in its effectiveness as evidenced by its failure in safeguarding its members’ interests against rising Chinese assertion as well Myanmar military regime’s indifference and inaction to ASEAN’s Myanmar Peace Plan. This was quite evident from the fact that in 2023, 82.6% of South Asians believe that ASEAN is “slow and ineffective, and thus (they) cannot cope with fluid political and economic developments”. This perception among respondents marks a drastic 12.5% jump from 70.1% in 2022.

“The sense that ASEAN is simply reactive to external developments, unable to effect change, and becoming irrelevant in the new world order is felt strongly by Vietnam at 93.4% and Singapore at 89.9%.” Of the group, Laos is the less critical at 70.1%, probably because of its dependence on China. But more or less this perception prevails in all the ASEAN countries, albeit with a varying but high intensity.

POWER PROXIES

According to the Survey, “the second-ranked challenge is the danger of ASEAN becoming an arena of major power competition and the fear that its member – states may become major power proxies, as expressed by 73.0% of the respondents. For Cambodia, this concern ranks at the top at 84.3%, ahead of concern of ASEAN being slow and ineffective. This concern may be directly related to external pressures felt by Cambodia as ASEAN Chair in 2022. Its external pressuriser is not difficult to guess.

The third most perceptible challenge, as it came from the survey is ASEAN increasingly becoming disunited on crucial global issues, such as Ukraine war, South China Sea, and Myanmar coup. The Singapore respondents showed greater concern in this regard than others.

Looking forward the survey has highlighted the need and importance of post-Covid economic recovery in the region, adopting sustainable development policies and giving a united front against fluid geo-political and geo-economic tussles both in the region and also at global level.

The strategy should be based on a balanced approach to growth and sustainable development as well as balanced regional and geo-political stances, not skewed in favour of any one and at the disadvantage of the other.

Individual country interests need to be subsumed with the larger regional interest in ASEAN as well as the adjoining areas.

—By Team Poreg