Abstract

ASEAN’s past capacity to anticipate geopolitical shifts and change – the challenges and opportunities stemming from them – has placed it in good stead.  ASEAN, its Member States united and speaking with a common voice, confident in capacity to effect positive change, astute in identifying emerging geopolitical dynamics and the attendant manifestations, extant and potential, resourceful in employing the means it possesses, has been able to gain and earn a significant role in shaping the region’s dynamics.  Essentially, helping secure an inclusive regional architecture which consolidated the region’s peace, security and prosperity.  Today, headwinds abound.  Well chronicled intensifying geopolitical tensions, increasingly manifested beyond political and security fields, and not least policy responses by non-ASEAN Member States that tend to deepen divide in the region, severely tests ASEAN’s centrality, relevance even.  As it marks its 55th year, would ASEAN continue to prosper, or would it whither?  How can ASEAN secure its continued relevance amidst intensifying geopolitical tensions? Is the mere expression of neutrality – a steadfast commitment not to take sides – sufficient amidst multifaceted and multi-layered geopolitical tensions?

About the Speaker

Marty Natalegawa was appointed as Distinguished Visiting Fellow in the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies on 1 July 2022.

Dr Natalegawa holds a D.Phil. from the Australian National University; an M.Phil. from University of Cambridge; and a BSc (Hons) from the London School of Economics.

Dr Natalegawa served as Foreign Minister of Indonesia (2009 – 2014). Previously, he served as Permanent Representative/Ambassador of Indonesia to the United Nations (UN); Ambassador to the UK and also to Ireland. Within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia, among others, he served as Director General for ASEAN Cooperation and Director for International Organizations.

Within ASEAN, he has been instrumental in pushing for the ASEAN Community and was an early advocate of an ASEAN role in the Indo-Pacific through the concept of “dynamic equilibrium”. Throughout, including as Foreign Minister, he actively promoted the management and resolution of potential conflicts in the region.

Within the context of the UN, he served, among others, as President of the Security Council in November 2007 and led Indonesia’s delegation at numerous multilateral negotiations, both within the UN and beyond. He was instrumental in securing Indonesia’s ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 2012.

He served in the UNSG’s High Level Panel on Global Response to Health Crises and UN President of the General Assembly’s 72nd Session Team of External Advisors.

He is a member of the UN Secretary-General’s High Level Advisory Board on Mediation. He is also a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament and the Board of Trustees of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research.

He is also presently Asia Society Policy Institute Distinguished Fellow; a member of the International Academic Advisory Committee of the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies; the Southeast Asia Advisory Board of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS – Washington, D.C.); Global Advisory Committee of the Jeju Forum; University of Western Australia’s Public Policy Institute Advisory Board; the Board of Directors of the Global Centre for Pluralism, Ottawa; and is a Prominent Research Scholar of the Bank of Indonesia Institute. He is also the Chairperson of the Asia Pacific Leaders Network (APLN) for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament.

He is the author of  “Does ASEAN Matter? A view from Within” (ISEAS Publishing – 2018).

Dr Natalegawa has been cited as “one of the most respected foreign policy and international security thinkers of his generation, both within Indonesia, in South-east Asia, and in the broader Asia-Pacific region”.