Did The World Gain From ASEAN and Related Summits 2025? Yes and No

The question of whether the world gained from the ASEAN and Related Summits of 2025 invites a dual response — yes and no. Summits are not designed to end wars; they are meant to contain them, to keep tensions within diplomatic boundaries, and to buy time for engagement before mistrust turns into mayhem.

No one expected the wars in Gaza or Ukraine to end overnight. Nor could anyone assume that the Taiwan Strait, the Korean Peninsula, or the South China Sea would suddenly become tranquil. Even Venezuela and Colombia continue to teeter on the brink of confrontation with Washington, as the Trump Administration revives its “war on drugs” narrative.

Summits as Instruments of Containment

In this context, ASEAN’s convening power was never about waving a magic wand. It was about sustaining forums for friction management. Under Malaysia’s 2025 Group Chairmanship, the ASEAN and Related Summits — including the East Asia Summit, the ASEAN Plus Three, and the RCEP gatherings — served as the last resort to keep the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China, from colliding head-on.

The Kuala Lumpur meetings were less about grand declarations and more about preventing economic convulsions. Tariffs, trade disruptions, and technological decoupling had pushed global supply chains toward collapse. ASEAN’s quiet interventions — through calibrated diplomacy and pragmatic frameworks — helped anchor a fragile world order.

The “Yes”: ASEAN’s Quiet Achievements

The “yes” lies in ASEAN’s steady hand. It created strategic insurance through overlapping dialogues among great powers that still trust the region’s neutrality.

In 2025, when protectionism and economic nationalism were once again on the rise, ASEAN’s trade frameworks — particularly the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and the Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA) — offered a measure of predictability. The formal inclusion of Timor-Leste as ASEAN’s 11th member added a symbolic layer of unity and completion to the Southeast Asian family.

Equally important, long-planned projects such as the ASEAN Power Grid, Trans-ASEAN Railway Network, and Rare Earth Supply Chain Cooperation Agreements began to move forward. These initiatives are binding the region’s energy, logistics, and mineral economies together, giving ASEAN real material depth beyond its diplomatic vocabulary.

Malaysia, as Chair, also scored a remarkable zero-tariff breakthrough with the United States — the first ASEAN member to secure such exemptions under Trump’s new tariff regime. Pharmaceutical products manufactured in Malaysia for the U.S. market, aircraft components supplied to Boeing, and agricultural goods such as cocoa, palm oil, and rubber were all granted tariff-free access. This was no small achievement. It underscored how careful diplomacy, guided by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s principle of consultation before compliance, could yield tangible economic results even in the midst of volatile trade politics.

The “No”: The Limits of Summitries

Yet ASEAN’s successes were bounded by harsh realities. Summits can redirect the tides of geopolitics, but they cannot reverse them. The region remains riddled with transnational crimes, corruption, and weak law enforcement.

Cambodia, for instance, though a crucial participant in ASEAN deliberations, continues to suffer from the scourge of digital scamming — a web of criminal syndicates operating across porous borders. These networks, often linked to local militias and well-connected entrepreneurs, have turned parts of Cambodia, Laos, and even the border regions of Myanmar into hubs of cyber-fraud that drain billions of U.S. dollars annually from unsuspecting victims worldwide.

The challenge is not merely technical but political. These syndicates blur the lines between state and non-state actors, creating shadow economies that thrive in governance vacuums. They resemble the ethno-nationalist organizations (ENOs) and the Tatmadaw in Myanmar, which have sought to finance their survival through illicit trade — narcotics, weapons, or human trafficking.

For ASEAN, these issues are not peripheral. They strike at the core of the bloc’s credibility. Every digital-scam victim from an ASEAN country becomes a symbol of the region’s failure to regulate its digital commons. Summits cannot fix this overnight. They can only highlight the urgency and encourage cooperation among law-enforcement agencies, financial regulators, and digital platforms.

The New Geopolitical Reality

The return of the Trump Administration has re-polarized global trade politics. Washington now favors bilateral deals driven by executive orders rather than multilateral consensus. ASEAN’s achievement, therefore, lies in its collective refusal to be cornered.

By engaging both Washington and Beijing — while maintaining open channels with the European Union, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and BRICS Plus — ASEAN positioned itself as a pivot, not a pawn. China, recalibrating its Belt and Road Initiative into a more sustainable “Blue-Green Silk Road,” found ASEAN indispensable. The United States, though unpredictable under Trump’s directives, continued to rely on ASEAN’s convening power to stabilize market access, energy security, and regional peace.

Rather than choosing sides, ASEAN integrated these competing frameworks into its economic architecture. Malaysia’s leadership was key to this balancing act, proving that strategic flexibility could coexist with principled diplomacy.

Beyond Asia: Brazil and South Africa Shift the Global South

This same spirit of balance was evident beyond Asia. Both Brazil and South Africa, two major voices of the Global South, arrived at the Kuala Lumpur Summits seeking to recalibrate their own relations with Washington.

Before President Trump’s return, both Brasília and Pretoria had maintained relatively cooperative ties with the U.S.

Brazil benefited from investment and trade engagement; South Africa relied on preferential access through the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA). But by early 2025, the tone had changed with the US.

Trump’s transactional approach, dominated by tariff threats and conditional aid, transformed once-functional relationships into unpredictable ones. Brazil — long proud of its autonomy as a founding member of BRICS — now found Washington’s trade demands incompatible with its agricultural and environmental priorities. South Africa, meanwhile, bristled at American criticism of its ties with China and Russia, as well as its independent stance on conflicts like Ukraine and Gaza.

Yet amid this tension, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva found the time to speak directly with President Donald Trump in Kuala Lumpur, instantly easing their acute differences. The handshake between both leaders — a mix of pragmatism and mutual calculation — became one of the quiet breakthroughs of the Summit, symbolizing how personal diplomacy can sometimes succeed where formal declarations fail.

Their recalibrated tone set the stage for a new form of cautious engagement between Washington and the Global South — one that ASEAN quietly enabled by providing the neutral platform and atmosphere of calm dialogue that neither side could have sustained elsewhere.

Normative and Practical Power

ASEAN’s normative appeal continues to rest on its Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), which enshrines the principle of non-interference and peaceful coexistence. Through partnerships with Japan, South Korea, and the European Union, ASEAN is also working toward a Multi-Regional Renewable Energy Credit Exchange Platform, linking decarbonization efforts to sustainable trade.

These achievements matter precisely because they address practical challenges that affect millions. They show that ASEAN’s diplomacy can generate tangible benefits even when its political mechanisms remain consensus-bound.

Conclusion: A Qualified Success

Did the world gain from the ASEAN and Related Summits 2025? Yes — because without them, tensions would have escalated and economic dislocation deepened. No — because transnational crime, weak enforcement, and entrenched geopolitical rivalries continue to erode trust.

Summits can neither end wars nor cleanse corruption. But they can keep dialogue alive, create a habit of consultation, and remind all powers — large and small — that diplomacy remains cheaper than conflict.

In that modest mission, ASEAN under Malaysia’s 2025 Chairmanship offered something the world sorely needed: a center of gravity where conversation still matters, even when consensus feels impossible.