ASEAN or Association of Southeast Asian Nations is a cooperative organization between Southeast Asian countries. ASEAN was founded in Bangkok on August 8 1967. Its formation was initiated by five countries, namely Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore and Indonesia. The signing of the Bangkok Declaration became the basis for the founding of ASEAN. The background to the founding of ASEAN was the strong desire of the founders to create a peaceful, safe, stable and prosperous Southeast Asian region.
The desire of ASEAN’s founders to continue to create stability in the ASEAN region currently has quite serious challenges due to the various complex problems in the world today. This year, Indonesia was entrusted again to become chairman of ASEAN after previously holding the chairmanship of ASEAN four times.
At this year’s ASEAN Chair, where the ASEAN Summit will be held on 5 – 7 September 2023 in Jakarta, Indonesia has quite a heavy burden to be able to maintain ASEAN’s dignity as a regional organization that is resilient in facing various challenges so that ASEAN can still be reckoned with internationally.
We certainly hope that at the 43rd ASEAN Summit in Jakarta this year, Indonesia will be able to bring ASEAN into a strong regional organization that will remain relevant in facing various international challenges and problems for the next 20 years. More importantly, we also hope that Indonesia can bring ASEAN down to earth and provide benefits for its people.
For this reason, it is hoped that the Jakarta ASEAN Summit can be a milestone in ensuring that future ASEAN cooperation can further enhance joint efforts in making ASEAN a more adaptive, responsive and competitive organization by contributing to upholding international law and maintaining its unity.
Indonesia has shown its commitment to supporting the realization of this, at least it can be seen from the handling of issues in the Indo-Pacific, which is an arena for competition between big countries. Indonesia has led the formation of the ASEAN Outlook on Indo-Pacific (AOIP) which was adopted by ASEAN in 2019 as an affirmation of ASEAN’s centrality.
Strengthening ASEAN’s assertion and centrality is needed by establishing rules of thumb for interactions between foreign countries in the Southeast Asia and Indo-Pacific regions that are based on the principles of cooperation, openness, inclusiveness, transparency, respect for international law, and mutual trust and respect for one another. each other.
We certainly hope that this year’s ASEAN Summit in Jakarta, with Indonesia’s chairmanship, can continue to produce concrete formulations at the level of implementation and operationalization of the AOIP, considering that the Indo-Pacific is a very strategic region, so that the resulting formulations can be comprehensive in terms of security, economic and economic approaches. development so that creative economic activities, digital economic business and investment, and infrastructure and others can support sustainable development.
In addition, Indonesia also brought an agenda to resume negotiations on the establishment of a code of conduct (CoC) for parties to disputes in the South China Sea. The establishment of the CoC is a mandate from the Declaration of Conduct (DoC) which was agreed upon by ASEAN and China at the ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh in 2002.
No less important is Indonesia’s efforts to overcome the Myanmar issue which has a direct impact on regional stability. Under its chairmanship, Indonesia pushed for the implementation of a 5- point consensus or 5-point agreement of ASEAN leaders which became ASEAN’s main mechanism in addressing issues or developments in Myanmar.
Of course, Indonesia’s chairmanship must be able to strengthen the agreement so as to prove the effectiveness of ASEAN institutions in overcoming its own internal issues. This is important to maintain ASEAN’s confidence and prove ASEAN’s credibility in maintaining regional and world stability. With the agreed agendas, ASEAN countries under Indonesia’s chairmanship must be able to strive for stability, security and peace in the region so that they can create growth that provides benefits for society, the region and the world.
