Southeast Asian leaders meet for ASEAN summit to tackle fallout from Iran war

Southeast Asian leaders convened in the Philippines to coordinate a joint response to the fallout from the Iran war, which has driven up energy costs across the region.

Speaking at the opening of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit on Friday, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said the war between the US-Israel alliance and Iran has been felt “through increased cost of living” and “threatens the livelihoods” of his countrymen as well as overseas Filipinos in the Middle East.

Marcos said that ASEAN, an 11-member bloc that includes the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia, should “enhance coordination” and “pursue practical collective measures to safeguard stable energy supply and improve connectivity.”

Southeast Asia is among the regions hardest hit by the conflict and Iran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has disrupted much of the region’s oil and natural gas supplies.

ASEAN, whose members represent over 700 million people, is expected to issue a joint statement calling for the reopening of the strait and improved coordination and information sharing in emergency situations, according to a leaked draft reviewed by multiple news agencies including The Associated Press and Channel News Asia.

The draft also said the bloc’s statement will focus on how member states can cooperate on energy and food security.

The Philippines has pushed ASEAN members to sign a voluntary energy-sharing agreement to address supply disruptions related to the Iran war, as well as to push for the establishment of an ASEAN power grid to interconnect the region’s electricity networks by 2045.

Manila declared a national emergency in March due to war-related energy shortages, while countries such as Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia have adopted various energy-saving measures, including price caps and work-from-home programs.

Petrochemical companies in Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore have also declared force majeure to absolve themselves of contractual liabilities due to forces beyond their control.

Tan Hsien-Li, an ASEAN expert at the NUS Law School in Singapore, said she expects the bloc to push for more intra-bloc economic cooperation and with “like-minded dialogue partners or regional organizations in Latin America or the Asia-Pacific.”

Tan said she anticipates “more substantive outcomes” compared to regular ASEAN summits. “Hopefully, there will be stronger implementation of existing cooperation agreements relating to the ASEAN Economic Community, as well as decisive action on the ASEAN Power Grid and the still-being-negotiated ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement,” she told Al Jazeera.

According to the draft, the joint ASEAN statement is also likely to stress the importance of international law, national sovereignty, and freedom of navigation.

Many ASEAN members share concerns about China’s expansive territorial claims in the South China Sea, which, like the Strait of Hormuz, is a critical waterway for international trade.

In the days leading up to the summit, both China and the US and its allies conducted military exercises in this waterway, highlighting its status as a “flashpoint” as multiple nations hold overlapping claims.

ASEAN, with its long-standing policy of non-interference in members’ internal affairs, has faced criticism over its limited power and influence.

Following bloody border clashes, Cambodia and Thailand signed a peace agreement on the sidelines of the October ASEAN summit in Malaysia, in a ceremony chaired by then-US President Donald Trump.

Despite the agreement, the two countries clashed again in December before reaching a second ceasefire later that month.

On the eve of the ASEAN summit, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet on Thursday pledged to continue dialogue and allow observer groups to access their border, but the leaders offered no solution to the decades-old dispute.