Timor-Leste joins ASEAN as leaders converge on Kuala Lumpur

This is Trump’s first attendance at the ASEAN summit since 2017, but his return to the region will be very short-lived. He will board Air Force One for Japan on Monday morning and then head to South Korea, where a meeting with APEC and Chinese leader Xi Jinping awaits.

Trump’s visit to ASEAN is conditional on him presiding over the expanded peace agreement between Cambodia and Thailand, which claimed nearly 50 lives, including civilians, over five days in July. Trump speaks highly of the shaky peace currently in place and is vociferously campaigning for next year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Speaking before the prime ministers of Thailand and Cambodia signed agreements on the withdrawal of heavy weapons and the transfer of 18 Cambodian prisoners of war, among other agreements, Trump joked about how their July phone call forced him to miss a round of golf.

“But I said this was much more important than playing a round of golf,” he said. “We sat there all day. We made phone calls, and it was amazing how it all came together so quickly. That’s more fun to me than anything else… Saving people, saving countries.”

Analysts say the vital role played by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was largely lost as Trump congratulated him, although the president praised Anwar on multiple occasions.

It may be tempting to see Trump’s presence in ASEAN as a renewed interest in strategically vital Southeast Asia, but Sharon Seah, senior fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, says that is not the case.

“ASEAN is a bonus,” he says, referring to Trump’s follow-up trip. “He has no interest in Southeast Asia. The only place he is interested in is where he thinks he can play the role of peacemaker.”

Ahead of Trump’s much-anticipated landing, East Timor’s ASEAN accession instrument was forwarded for signature among the nine leaders seated on the main stage. Singaporean Lawrence Wong had an honest expression, probably looking a little bored. The pragmatic country has deepest reservations about one of Asia’s poorest countries putting pressure on the rest.

The second last person to sign was a bureaucrat from Myanmar. ASEAN excludes the country’s self-appointed leadership over the atrocities it continues to inflict on its people.

East Timor prime minister and independence hero Kay Rala Xanana Gusmao was the last to sign; his stern face was lit up by a wide, closed-mouthed smile.

“History is being made today,” he said.

Talks about Timor-Leste’s entry into ASEAN began at the time of independence in 2002, but the country was so far behind that the formal process only began to slowly progress in 2011.

“I said, humorously or sarcastically, ‘It’s easier to get into heaven than into ASEAN,'” Ramos-Horta says.

“To get into heaven, all you have to do is control yourself, pray as often as possible, and confess your sins to the priest. If you die that evening, you are in heaven, and everything in heaven is taken care of on your behalf.”

“Nothing is taken care of for you in ASEAN. Not only that, you are forced to work very, very hard.”

This study was undertaken to prepare East Timor’s nascent independence-era governance and infrastructure systems, or at least to point the way to readiness for ASEAN’s complex standards.

This also meant compromise. East Timor’s freedom fighter history has fostered a political culture that defends human rights, freedom of expression and democracy. To this end, he harshly criticized Myanmar’s ruling military junta. But ASEAN, often painfully, requires consensus on all decisions, including despotic generals. The Timorese leadership needed to push back to gain the regime’s tacit support and adhere to ASEAN’s core principle of non-intervention.

“But being a good member of ASEAN does not require us to remain indifferent when there are gross, systematic human rights violations in a particular country,” Ramos-Horta says.

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“We will not claim to be guardians of the international human rights standards that we apply at home. But we will try to work with other ASEAN countries, the UN and other partners to see how the conflict in Myanmar can end because the people of Myanmar are suffering.”

Seah says ASEAN is largely full of autocratic regimes and pseudo-democracies, so East Timor’s membership would bring a new dynamic.

“Of course, it brings with it its own developmental challenges, which is what worries other ASEAN member states,” he says.

“But we are going through very turbulent times geopolitically. Leaving Timor out would mean another area of ​​great power competition developing into the southeast of Southeast Asia and just north of Australia.”

Ramos Horta says he’s not much of a drinker. But he also concedes that when his compatriots get drunk on Sunday night, he might be allowed to have a few beers.

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