The Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia has issued a pointed call for ASEAN and broader Asia-Pacific nations to stop treating themselves as passive respondents to international developments and instead assume direct control over their strategic futures. Datuk Prof Dr Mohd Faiz Abdullah, executive chairman of ISIS Malaysia, made these remarks during the opening of the 39th Asia-Pacific Roundtable on Wednesday, striking a tone that reflects deepening anxiety across the region about the fracturing of the post-Cold War order and the intensification of great-power competition.
Mohd Faiz's central argument reframes how agency should be understood in international relations, particularly for mid-sized and smaller nations that lack the military or economic dominance of superpowers. Rather than measuring a country's influence by how effectively it adapts to external pressures or hedges between competing powers, he argued that true agency derives from a state's capacity to make deliberate strategic choices and coordinate collective regional responses that reshape outcomes in its favour. This distinction matters enormously for Southeast Asian policymakers, who have long struggled with the tension between maintaining strategic autonomy and managing relationships with powers whose economic and military weight far exceeds their own.
The conceptual shift underpinning this argument addresses a chronic challenge facing ASEAN. The bloc has historically prided itself on pragmatism and flexibility, but these qualities have sometimes masked a reactive posture—responding to initiatives from Beijing, Washington, or New Delhi rather than setting the agenda itself. Mohd Faiz suggested that the region must now invest deliberately in building internal capacity and institutional resilience at both national and community levels. Only through such foundation-building can ASEAN negotiate from genuine strength rather than from a position of vulnerability to external shocks, whether economic, geopolitical, or technological.
The framing arrives at a moment when multiple regional flashpoints demand coordinated response. The 39th Asia-Pacific Roundtable, held from June 30 to July 2 under the theme "Accelerating Agency and Action," identified four critical strategic fault lines that will shape the region's trajectory in coming years. The China-India axis represents perhaps the most consequential relationship, with implications for trade flows, security architectures, and the balance of power that affects every Southeast Asian nation. Simultaneously, ASEAN's own institutional relevance faces questions as major powers increasingly conduct bilateral engagements and build alternative frameworks that circumvent traditional ASEAN-led forums.
Nuclear security concerns have also resurged as a strategic consideration after nearly three decades of relative dormancy. The possible nuclearisation of regional disputes, shifts in how existing nuclear powers deploy their arsenals, and proliferation risks all demand serious regional dialogue. Perhaps equally pressing, the geopolitics of critical minerals and supply-chain resilience have emerged as fundamental to national security and economic survival. Malaysia itself, as a significant producer of rare earths and semiconductor components, faces pressure from competing powers seeking to secure access while simultaneously avoiding dependence on any single source.
Mohd Faiz stressed that the Asia-Pacific Roundtable operates as something distinct from typical academic conferences or official governmental forums. Track 2 diplomacy, as this form of semi-official engagement is known, creates space for candid discussion precisely because participants are not bound by formal governmental positions. They can ask uncomfortable questions, challenge prevailing orthodoxies, and explore solutions that official channels might dismiss as politically infeasible. This environment has become increasingly valuable as geopolitical tensions rise and official dialogues grow more constrained by domestic political pressures and strategic posturing.
The conference programming reflects this intention to move beyond comfortable consensus toward genuine intellectual engagement with difficult problems. High-profile fireside chats, including one featuring Australian High Commissioner Danielle Heinecke on middle-power agency, underscore an important regional dynamic. Australia's own experience navigating relationships with China, the United States, and India offers lessons for Southeast Asian states wrestling with similar dilemmas about maintaining autonomy while preserving beneficial relationships across competing power centers. The presence of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who will deliver Thursday's keynote address, signals that Malaysia's leadership recognises the stakes involved and the importance of intellectual frameworks that can guide policy.
The timing of this emphasis on regional agency reflects a broader recalibration happening across Asia-Pacific. For decades, the region oriented itself around the assumption of American-led stability and relatively uncontested access to global commons. That era has definitively ended. China's rise, India's growing assertiveness, technological fragmentation, and climate pressures have combined to create a far more contested operating environment. Within this context, calls for ASEAN to exercise greater collective agency represent not idealistic rhetoric but practical necessity. The alternative—remaining passive as geopolitical forces reshape the region—would yield outcomes determined entirely by external actors.
Yet translating abstract agency into concrete action remains ASEAN's persistent challenge. The bloc's decision-making processes, built on consensus and non-interference, have historically produced lowest-common-denominator outcomes that satisfy no member completely but prevent rupture. When genuine strategic interests diverge—as they do regarding China policy, maritime disputes, or investment frameworks—consensus becomes elusive. Myanmar's ongoing political crisis and ASEAN's inability to meaningfully address it exemplify these constraints. Building stronger regional resilience and exercising collective agency will require ASEAN to evolve its operating principles while maintaining the cohesion that makes it relevant at all.
For Malaysia specifically, this emphasis on agency carries particular weight. As ASEAN chair-in-waiting and a nation positioned at the intersection of multiple strategic interests, Malaysia has opportunity to shape how the region responds to the four identified fault lines. The country's economic reliance on integrated supply chains, its significant Chinese diaspora and historical ties alongside security relationships with Western powers, and its geographic position make it emblematic of the balancing act every Southeast Asian state performs. Malaysian leadership in advancing regional resilience and coordinated action could establish templates that benefit the entire community.
The broader implication of ISIS Malaysia's message extends beyond ASEAN itself. The Asia-Pacific region encompasses a complex array of state and non-state actors, from developed economies like South Korea and Japan to developing nations across Southeast Asia and South Asia. Each brings different interests, capabilities, and vulnerabilities to regional challenges. Yet all share an interest in ensuring that the rules governing regional conduct remain open, transparent, and not simply dictated by whichever power proves most militarily assertive. Regional agency in this context means building coalitions around shared interests, strengthening institutions that facilitate cooperation, and developing the analytical capacity to anticipate challenges before they become crises.
The conversation about agency also reflects subtle anxiety about technological change and systemic fragmentation. Supply-chain disruptions, the critical importance of semiconductors and rare earth minerals, the militarisation of space and cyber domains, and the rise of artificial intelligence all promise to reshape what power means and how it operates. ASEAN and its regional partners must not only understand these developments intellectually but position themselves to influence how technological change unfolds rather than simply absorbing its consequences. This requires investment in education, research, and strategic foresight that many regional nations struggle to sustain amid competing budgetary pressures.
As the 39th Asia-Pacific Roundtable proceeds through its sessions and culminates with the Prime Minister's remarks, participants will grapple with whether the region possesses sufficient cohesion, institutional capacity, and strategic vision to translate agency from concept into practice. The stakes are formidable. The global order's fragmentation, intensifying great-power rivalry, and proliferation of transnational challenges mean that nations which fail to shape their own futures will find themselves shaped by forces beyond their control. For ASEAN, for Malaysia, and for the broader Asia-Pacific community, the challenge now is to move beyond recognising this imperative and actually building the structures, relationships, and decision-making frameworks that make genuine regional agency achievable.
