Getting ready: Foreign Minister Datuk Seri Mohamad Hasan speaking to the press about Malaysia’s 2025 Asean chairmanship. Malaysia will have a busy year to address urgent challenges while exploring new prospects for the regional pact. — Bernama
WITH the new year comes new possibilities and expectations. Some outcomes will be the result of recent events, while others may be unexpected or surprising.
US President-elect Donald Trump begins a new term from next month. The United States is the sole global superpower, so some of his policies will impact the world.
Meanwhile wars, conflicts, a genocide, and rising tensions dot and mar the world. South-East Asia is not immune to such violence and no region is ever inured to it.
Trump says he is aware of the challenges and appears determined to resolve the conflicts. What may be more important is whether his policies will actually reduce conflicts and lower tensions, or escalate them as Joe Biden’s term has done.
In the three presidential terms between Barack Obama and Joe Biden, they raised more geopolitical tensions and trade conflict with nuclear-armed Russia and China than anyone in recent history. The test now is to see if a different administration with a very different president can turn back rising global distrust and confrontation.
The common expectation is for Trump to heighten tensions and escalate the trade war with China. But that would be to misread his political instincts and character.
Always keen to be the first in new ventures and to forge new directions, Trump is typically impatient with failed policies. A bumbling Biden as predecessor is the perfect foil for Trump to project his triumph in contrast to Biden the clueless “loser”, as Trump calls him.
Before last month’s election, Trump regarded the US’ Meta-owned Facebook as an enemy and China’s Bytedance-owned TikTok as an ally. Then he said his enemies in the US were worse than Russia and China.
He warned of high tariffs on Chinese auto imports unless the vehicles were assembled in the US employing American workers. Until then the closest that Chinese auto companies could get to the US was to operate plants in Mexico, with 12 of them doing so in the last five years.
After the election Trump said if the US and China worked together, many of the world’s problems could be solved. Then he met TikTok CEO Chew Shou Zi last Monday in the company’s effort to have Biden’s impending ban on the app lifted.
What policies would eventually emerge from the White House in the months and years ahead remain to be seen. For now at least, there is reason to hope that more constructive alternatives to Biden’s dead-end escalations are possible.
Some aspects of trade diversion resulting from Washington’s “China+1” policies are likely to remain. The main challenges for other countries are still to attract, manage, and retain global opportunities in developing chip design and data centre hubs.
In South-East Asia, countries like Malaysia face a major challenge in fulfilling aspirations and expectations with a limited talent pool. Opportunities abound particularly with a boost in US-China relations, because despite occasional blips global demand for semiconductors and related technology is set to grow indefinitely.
At the same time, this region is also beset with the challenge of a multi-faceted civil war in Myan-mar steadily spiralling out of control. The extent of likely spillovers across borders is unclear and cannot be underestimated.
Such Asean challenges are now seen as the special responsibility of Malaysia as Asean’s incoming chair for next year. Nonetheless, the work needed in addressing them always requires collective effort and commitment.
Almost routinely, Asean chairmanship entails largely housekeeping functions such as communication among members, organising meetings and the logistics to support such events. There is no particular obligation to introduce bright new ideas of great significance.
However, Malaysia this time appears determined to establish a viable regional leadership in its year-long tenure. To do so requires serious attempts at meeting current regional challenges.
The Myanmar civil war is at once tough and delicate. It demands experience, wisdom, and resoluteness to comprehend as well as to engage meaningfully.
Asean’s principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of member states applies only to those affairs deemed merely internal. The international ramifications of Myanmar’s civil strife have been in need of international engagement for decades.
The Asean way implies engaging all parties in the multi- pronged conflicts equally and fairly without fear or favour. Following the coup in Myanmar in 2021, the Asean position is to not recognise the military junta that seized power as a legitimate governing party.
However, engaging everyone in dialogue at least is essential for talks to work. A consistently inclusive Asean should have no problem with inclusivity in resolving a civil war.
Beyond addressing urgent challenges, Asean countries also have the prospect of exploring the advantages of full BRICS membership. With Malaysia among four Asean members as BRICS partner countries, its Asean chairmanship might also cover leading discussions among all Asean countries on the implications.
Within the limits of what is possible, Malaysia is raring to go.
Bunn Nagara is Director and Senior Fellow at the BRI Caucus for Asia-Pacific, and Honorary Fellow at the Perak Academy. The views expressed here are solely the writer’s own.
