20 June 2025
WP345 | Analysing ASEAN Chairmanships in Perspective: Malaysia in 2025 and Future Leadership Outlook Amid Vision 2045
Executive Summary
In recent years, multiple Southeast Asian states holding the annually-rotating ASEAN chairmanship have been managing an agenda fraught with a series of global and regional challenges. This paper develops a new GRID framework to explain how ASEAN chairmanship agendas can be assessed over time. This GRID framework argues that the evolving mix of continuity and change can be understood as a product of the dynamic interplay of four factors: (i) the geopolitical environment; (ii) regional developments; (iii) institutional context; and (iv) domestic realities. Applied to Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship in 2025, the framework contextualises the dynamics behind an active and multifaceted agenda that the country has developed and implemented, with a mix of elements of continuity and change across these aspects. Additionally, beyond 2025, there remain outstanding questions about how the regional initiatives being shaped as well as the existing challenges are likely to interact and influence dynamics in the coming years that bear careful watching. This will evolve along with ASEAN’s own Community Vision 2045.
Source: Canva
Executive Summary
In recent years, multiple Southeast Asian states holding the annually-rotating ASEAN chairmanship have been managing an agenda fraught with a series of global and regional challenges. This paper develops a new GRID framework to explain how ASEAN chairmanship agendas can be assessed over time. This GRID framework argues that the evolving mix of continuity and change can be understood as a product of the dynamic interplay of four factors: (i) the geopolitical environment; (ii) regional developments; (iii) institutional context; and (iv) domestic realities. Applied to Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship in 2025, the framework contextualises the dynamics behind an active and multifaceted agenda that the country has developed and implemented, with a mix of elements of continuity and change across these aspects. Additionally, beyond 2025, there remain outstanding questions about how the regional initiatives being shaped as well as the existing challenges are likely to interact and influence dynamics in the coming years that bear careful watching. This will evolve along with ASEAN’s own Community Vision 2045.
Source: Canva
