Abstract

The ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP), adopted in June 2019, is the collective response of ASEAN to the key challenge facing regional countries: how to navigate the strategic rivalry between China and the US in the Indo-Pacific region. ASEAN, as a fulcrum of Indo-Pacific, realizes that the competing visions of regional order between the two great powers could be devastating for the region. Therefore, it needs to also register a strong regional view on how the Indo-Pacific order should be managed. The question is, can the AOIP go beyond a norm-setting exercise?

About the Speaker

Rizal Sukma is a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Jakarta. Previously, he was Indonesia’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Ireland and the International Maritime Organization (IMO), London, from 2016 to 2020. He joined CSIS in 1990 as a researcher and assumed the role of Executive Director in 2009 until 2015. Dr Sukma also served as former Chairman of International Relations, Muhammadiyah Central Executive Board (2005-2015). Since receiving a PhD in International Relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science in 1997, he has worked extensively on such issues as Southeast Asian security, ASEAN, Indonesia’s defense and foreign policy, military reform, Islam and politics, and domestic political changes in Indonesia.

Dr Sukma has served as a member of the National Committee on Strategic Defence Review at the Ministry of Defence, and as a member of the National Drafting Committee for the National Defence Bill (2000–2002) and the Armed Forces Bill (2002–2003). He was the first Indonesian to receive the Nakasone Award, in July 2005, and named one 100 Global Thinkers in 2009 by Foreign Policy magazine. His many publications include, most recently, “The Asean Political and Security Community (APSC): Opportunities and Constraints for the R2P in Southeast Asia”, appears in The Pacific Review, Vol. 25, No. 1 (March 2012), and “Indonesia Finds A New Voice,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 22, No. 4, (October 2011).

He has also published three books: Security Operations in Aceh: Goals, Consequences, and Lessons (Washington, DC: East-West Centre, 2004); Islam in Indonesia’s Foreign Policy (London: Routledge, 2003), and Indonesia and China: The Politics of A Troubled Relationship (London: Routledge, 1999).