The National Monument in Jakarta City, Indonesia. Photo: Ali Trisno Pranoto via Getty Images.

In October 2017, twenty-two scholars from eight countries attended a workshop titled “ASEAN @ 50, Southeast Asia @ Risk: What should be done?” The workshop was designed to facilitate a frank and creative discussion of policy recommendations, with the intention of providing the resulting proposals to ASEAN member states and other regional powers. Following two days of discussion and debate, the attendees produced a series of specific policy recommendations (SPRs).

Four sets of Southeast Asia-related topics were covered during the workshop: regional security, regional infrastructure, regional economy, and improving ASEAN. The attending scholars—which included Director of the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative Karl Eikenberry and Director of the Southeast Asia Program Donald Emmerson—submitted 24 SPRs for discussion.

Over two-and-a-half days, the group evaluated each SPR for its effectiveness, significance, specificity, and feasibility. The intention was to produce specific proposals addressing some of the main challenges facing Southeast Asia. So as to encourage openness in the dialogue, the workshop was held under the Chatham House Rule.

The Southeast Asia Program and the U.S.-Asia Security Initiative in the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center prepared this program and final publication in cooperation with multiple partners. Their final recommendations have been included in the 20-page report which is now available online.

The U.S.-Asia Security Initiative at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center has selected two Stanford students for its inaugural summer internships in partnership with The Asia Foundation and the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. The two students, Kar Mun Nicole Wong and Vivan Malkani, will intern at The Asia Foundation offices in Jakarta, Indonesia, or Washington, D.C., and pursue separate projects focused on international policy.

In Jakarta, Wong will help document a case study focused on Indonesia’s marginalized communities, and in the District of Columbia, Malkani will research topics such as the role of civil society in development and U.S. policy on countering violent extremism.

Brief bios of the selected students are listed below:

Interning at the Jakarta office

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Kar Mun Nicole Wong is a junior at Stanford from Singapore, majoring in international relations with a minor in art history. Her departmental specializations are international history and culture, and East and South Asia. She is currently writing an honors thesis on the relationship between China and the Middle East and its effects on China’s Muslim populations.

Much of Wong’s Stanford career has been dedicated to pursuing her interests in social organization and increasing inclusion of marginalized communities. As a freshman, Wong served as a research assistant for the Rural Education Action Program, a research organization dedicated to discovering the causes of, and solutions to, poverty in rural China. In 2016, Wong was also selected to serve as the Stanford delegate to the Vienna International Christian-Islamic Summer University, a program dedicated to religious inclusion through discourse between Christian and Muslim perspectives of students and academics from all over the world.

Through her internship with The Asia Foundation in Jakarta, Wong hopes to not only gain a better understanding of Indonesia and Southeast Asia as a whole, but also to continue her passion for social inclusion through her work with the Peduli program.

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Vivan Malkani is an undergraduate student at Stanford from the class of 2019. He is currently a sophomore, majoring in political science with a focus on political philosophy and data science. His other academic interests include earth systems, computer science and Mandarin Chinese.

Born and raised in Mumbai, India, Malkani attended the Cathedral and John Connon School for his high school education. He came to Stanford in 2015, undertaking the Structured Liberal Education program, a yearlong course of study that examines the evolution of Western philosophy, religion and political structures. This experience prompted him to pursue coursework in history and political science, including Chinese history and politics by learning Mandarin Chinese.

In the summer of 2016, Malkani was a research assistant at the Stanford Political Science Summer Research College, working for Professor Lisa Blaydes on her project on Middle Eastern state development. The project examined the role of different economic institutions in the political development of 13th-15th century Mamluk Egypt, examining cadastral records and building geospatial visualizations of the data.

Outside of the classroom, Malkani is an active member of Stanford in Government. He is also a writer for the Stanford Political Journal and member of the Ethics Bowl Society.

The Association for Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), a coalition of 10 Southeast Asian countries formed to promote regional development and security, will mark its 50th anniversary this year. While ASEAN’s longevity is a cause for celebration, it also calls for creative introspection regarding what it can and should do, according to Southeast Asia Program Director Donald K. Emmerson.

“There is a lot that ASEAN cannot do in its present form, under its present leaders, and in presently China-challenged conditions. Yet no one could objectively scan ASEAN’s first fifty years and conclude that the organization has remained the same – once a cow, always a cow.

“Whatever ASEAN does become, its alternative futures should be considered now, carefully and creatively, while there is still time to prefer one scenario over the others and to follow up with steps that make it more likely,” he writes in a paper featured in the February edition of TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia.

ASEAN, he says, needs to reexamine its goals and consider new means to achieve them, to brainstorm better ways of protecting its region from external control, and to reevaluate the nature and efficacy of the “ASEAN Way,” including its self-paralyzing commitment to unanimity as a precondition for collective action.

That commitment has already been breached for economic policy arrangements that allow a “two-speed ASEAN” to exist, where for less developed members, deadlines for economic reform are postponed, while for all other members, the deadlines remain unchanged. So, why not adapt that idea to regional security initiatives as well?

According to Emmerson, the Southeast Asia region is being threatened by China’s efforts to control land features in the South China Sea for the purposes of projecting coercive power. China uses the ASEAN Way’s requirement of consensus by promising economic support to specific ASEAN members in hopes of coopting them into vetoing any move by ASEAN to counter China’s campaign in the South China Sea.

Abetting China’s expansion, he says, are the rival claims to maritime sovereignty by some of ASEAN’s own members. Their failure to settle their own disagreements precludes the bargaining power that a unified ASEAN might bring to the table in talks with China.

Emmerson, who addressed these matters at Stanford in March, argues that a more innovative ASEAN will lead to a more secure region.

Regarding the South China Sea, for example, ASEAN could encourage an effort by its four claimant members to settle their own differences first by drafting an ASEAN agreement, signing it and presenting it to China to sign as well. Even if China refuses, at least ASEAN would have established a common position among the ASEAN countries most directly concerned.

In the paper, he discusses several ways of restructuring ASEAN. They include:

• ASEAN minus X: A subset of ASEAN members would move ahead on economic or security arrangements with the understanding that the remaining subset would join later.
• ASEAN Pacific Alliance: ASEAN would work with Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru to create a coalition that would strengthen ASEAN’s trans-Pacific ties.
• East Asia Summit (EAS): ASEAN would try to elevate this annual gathering of leaders, including China and the United States, into a capstone venue for cooperation on regional security.

Emmerson also urges outside observers to generate innovative policy proposals related to ASEAN and present them for discussion informally or in Track II dialogue formats.

“It’s time for ASEAN watchers to generate ideas for the grouping to consider, including initiatives that could be pursued by one, two or more member countries,” he said in a later interview. “The creative involvement of scholars, journalists, businesspeople and other analysts inside member states could socialize such proposals in local policy circles to make them better known and more feasible.”

In line with this vision, Emmerson is co-organizing a trilateral workshop on ASEAN reform, regional security, infrastructure building and economic regionalism. Hosted by the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center (APARC) and planned for this fall, it will evaluate proposals on these topics generated or compiled by Shorenstein APARC’s Southeast Asia Program and U.S.-Asia Security Initiative; the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore; and the Strategic and Defense Studies Centre in Canberra. Details about the conference will be posted in the coming months.