Organizer: Asia Society Policy Institute

Description:

The complexity of challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, including U.S.-China tensions, territorial disputes, and the Myanmar crisis, has resulted in a paradox of multilateralism. While these developments have underscored the importance of cooperation, they have also tested inter-governmental frameworks such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The revival of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (“Quad”), creation of the Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) arrangement, and renewed criticisms of ASEAN’s efficacy in political and security affairs raise the question of whether minilateralism — arrangements of smaller groupings of willing, able, or like-minded countries — may be the more practical approach for managing developments and preserving a rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific.

Asia Society Policy Institute's (ASPI) Director of Political-Security Affairs Elina Noor will moderate this public, virtual roundtable to discuss the future of minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific and its implications for a rules-based regional order with Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace's Executive Director Ambassador Pou Sothirak, U.S. Institute of Peace's Senior Expert on Southeast Asia Brian Harding, Kanagawa University's Professor at the Faculty of Law Mie Oba, and Chulalongkorn University's Professor and Director of the Institute of Security and International Studies Thitinan Pongsudhirak. The roundtable will assess the regional appetite for, and constraints of, minilateral arrangements aimed at managing or resolving otherwise intractable security challenges. Panelists will also identify particular areas of policy convergence suitable for targeted, practical minilateral cooperation. Among the Quad countries, these areas include public health, climate change, and critical technologies. In Southeast Asia, the Malacca Strait Patrol and Trilateral Maritime Patrol are existing examples of minilateralism in practice. Are there other opportunities for such minilateralism to be replicated elsewhere?

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