Asean prepares for a summit where anything could happen

Summits of the Association of South-East Asian Nations – or Asean – don’t always attract huge attention internationally, but this weekend’s gathering in Kuala Lumpur could be one of the most consequential for a long time. It has already prompted headlines such as “the world comes to Asean”.

Besides the leaders of the 10 Asean member states, a very prominent contingent of guests is expected, including US President Donald Trump, Chinese Premier Li Qiang, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi (who will attend virtually), Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, and, er, Fifa President Gianni Infantino, who seems to be making a habit of appearing at such events.

Asean itself has a significant agenda. An upgraded Asean-China Free Trade Agreement is due to be signed, as is a Digital Economic Framework Agreement that aims to increase connectivity and to “wire” the regional economy together for the benefit of the group’s nearly 680 million people. There will also be an emphasis on the plan to build a fully integrated regional power grid by 2045 – with nine of the 18 identified priority projects already completed.

It is hoped that a durable ceasefire agreement between Thailand and Cambodia, which Malaysian Foreign Minister Mohamad Hasan has dubbed the “KL Accords or KL Declaration”, will be signed, with Malaysia and the US – both of which helped halt the border conflict in July – acting as facilitators. And for the first time since 1999, Asean is due to welcome a new member – East Timor, whose President Jose Ramos-Horta once joked that the accession period his country went through was so long that joining Asean was harder than gaining entry to heaven.

As if all that wasn’t enough, the summit will also feature the first leaders’ meeting of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, which brings together the 10 Asean member states plus China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand in the world’s biggest trade agreement, since it was signed in 2020. And the East Asia Summit, always held alongside the Asean summit, brings India, the US and Russia to the table as well.

No wonder security has been so tightened in the centre of the Malaysian capital that the area around the Petronas Twin Towers, where the summits will be hosted, is expected to be a virtual no-go area for anyone not involved in the meetings. Road closure notices have been doing the rounds on local WhatsApp groups for days already.

There are a few questions. Will the Thailand-Cambodia peace deal come together? Mr Trump is due to attend the signing ceremony, but both sides continued to trade barbs until recently. And the issue of tariffs looms large, with some countries present hit particularly hard by the Trump administration. Acknowledging that this thorny issue was bound to be raised, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said this week: “I am not underestimating the importance of such deliberations, but I am cautiously optimistic that somehow rather, sanity will prevail.”

This could be addressed and included in an Agreement on Reciprocal Trade between Asean and the US, which Malaysian Trade Minister Zafrul Abdul Aziz hopes can be finalised in time for the summit. “For Asean, we want to show America, especially the Trump administration, that we engage everyone, including the US, and more importantly, Asean can be a partner to all countries, including the US,” he said recently.

That’s an optimistic scenario. Given Mr Trump’s mercurial nature, one can’t be certain exactly how the series of meetings will play out. “I try not to anticipate too much this time,” one Malaysian official messaged me. “Anything could happen.”

What is more certain is that the moves to continue Asean’s internal integration – the digital economic framework and the regional power grid – will go forward as intended, as will the new, improved Asean-China Free Trade Agreement, which will build on Asean’s external integration in the Asia-Pacific. Given that the group and its officials have nothing like the omnipresence and high public profile that their counterparts in the EU do, it may be that these advances are little noticed by most of the populations of the Asean states. But they all contribute to the steady advances Asean continues to make, like, for instance, having almost completely eliminated tariffs within the association by 2020.

Lastly, taking in East Timor as a new member would mark this as a key Asean summit even if nothing else happened at all. So-called friends should resist the idea that this could be a means to shift Asean to their advantage. One American academic wrote that “the region’s only full democracy” joining – a description some countries may bridle at – was an opportunity to tilt Asean towards the US and away from China.

On the contrary, I would suggest East Timor’s leadership be careful to respect the “Asean way” of consensus, conciliation and non-interference. As it is, one senior regional diplomat complained to me earlier this year that the country’s leaders were too European in their outlook (the country was a Portuguese colony for centuries until 1975) and prone to offer lectures on human rights. My friend wasn’t the only one with reservations. For different reasons and at different times, both Singapore and Myanmar have opposed East Timor joining in the past.

However, this weekend at least, it should be cause for celebration and marks a significant milestone – the moment when Asean formally includes the whole of South-East Asia. If the Thailand-Cambodia peace deal falls through, perhaps Mr Trump could take the credit for that instead? I joke – although the organisers must be aware that everything must be done to ensure the US President has a wonderful time at the summits in Kuala Lumpur. For the region, rather a lot could be riding on it.