Opening remarks by the three organizers :
Prof. Suthiphand Chirathivat, ASEAN Studies Center, Chulalongkorn University ;
Assoc. Prof. Claire Thi Lien Tran (IRASEC CNRS),
Prof. Prabir De, ASEAN-India Centre (AIC), RIS
• Ms. Usana BERANANDA, Director-General, Department of ASEAN Affairs of Thailand
• H.E Dr Thierry MATHOU, Ambassador of France in Thailand, former Director of the Asia Direction at the French MOFA
• Dr. Mohan KUMAR, Former Ambassador of India in France and Chairman, RIS , (...)

ASEAN and Asian Security in the Age of Pandemics
Amitav ACHARYA (School of International Service, American University, Washington, D.C)
This presentation will assess the impact of COVID-19 on US-China competition, China-ASEAN relations, and ASEAN centrality in the regional architecture of Indo-Pacific. While the pandemic has far-reaching effects on Asia, it is too early to assess it long-term effects. The pandemic might accelerate the rise of Asia, but fears of a Chinese hegemony are (...)

Where ‘Act East’ meets Indo-Pacific : Mapping India’s Southeast Asia engagement
Rahul MISHRA, Asia-Europe Institute, University of Malaya (Malaysia)
Launch in 2014, the ‘Act East’ policy, known as the ‘Look East’ in its previous avatar, aims to comprehensively engage India with the Southeast Asian (and wider Indo-Pacific) region at political, strategic, cultural, connectivity, and people-to-people levels. This paper maps key achievements of the Act East policy and analyses its role in fulfilling (...)

Explaining and Understanding ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific : A Neo-classical Realist Account
Surat HORACHAIKUL, Indian Studies Center and Faculty of Political Science (Chulalongkorn University)
This article employs a lens of neo-classical realism to argue that the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) is the best outcome for what ASEAN’s member states could compromise in the context of BRI led by China and Indo-Pacific led by the United States. To satisfy the title, the article is (...)

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Session 2 / Southeast Asia between India and China : Reimagining Asia and Regional Indo-Pacific Order
Chair : Prof Surichai WUN’GAEO, Professor Emeritus (Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok)
The Indo-Pacific area with important economic and cultural interactions between the two oceans go back millennia, long before the colonial era. Against tremendous changes in the post-colonial and –Cold War periods, the late 20th century’s debate has been recentered on the Asia-Pacific. And (...)

An Indonesian Perpsective on the Indo-Pacific Centrality and Multilateralism in Uncertime Times
Dewi FORTUNA ANWAR, Research Center for Politics Indonesian Institute of Sciences (Jakarta)
Indonesia has embraced the concept of the Indo-Pacific region, which integrates the Indian and Pacific Oceans into one geostrategic space, with enthusiasm. Propelled by the aspiration to make Indonesia into a global maritime fulcrum on the one hand, and faced with the plethora of initiatives on the (...)

Strengthening Pluralism in the Indo-Pacific and the Role of the ASEAN
LAU Sim Yee, Faculty of International Studies, Reitaku University (Tokyo)
Indo-Pacific has become a place where 24 allies are dividing themselves with their alleged challenger, China. Containment strategy executed by the US and its allies, humanitarian interventions in failed states, freedom and prosperity expounded by liberal democracy and capitalism, and the Biden’s assertion of the rivalry between US and China as"a (...)

ASEAN’s Positioning in a multipolar Indo-Pacific
Joefe B. SANTARITA, Asian Center, University of the Philippines
In Indo-Pacific and regional context, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) finds itself in a strategic vantage point relative to the United States, China, and other middle powers due to its nonthreatening posture and its capacity to perambulate through the “hierarchical” nature of global affairs. As a follow up to the Singapore based think tank’s commentary, this (...)

The Indo-Pacific : An Opportunity for Vietnam
Claire Thị Liên TRẦN, Research Institute on Contemporary Southeast Asia (IRASEC), Bangkok
This paper shows how the Indo-Pacific strategy has become a major issue of the Vietnamese foreign policy. More than ever, Vietnam seeks multilateralism to manage its necessary political and economic partnership with the neighbouring China and its military pressure in the South China Sea. This paper highlights the opportunities for Vietnam’s economic, (...)

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Session 3 / The Indo-Pacific from Southeast Asian Perspectives : Centrality and Multilateralism in Uncertain Times
Chair : Dr Stéphane DOVERT, Founder of IRASEC
Chair : Prof. Suthiphand CHIRATHIVAT, Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok)
The Indo-Pacific considered as a maritime “super-region” acknowledge the fact that the Indian Ocean has replaced the Atlantic as the globe’s busiest and most strategically significant trade corridor, whose geographical center in Southeast Asia. (...)

Thai policy face to US/China competition and possible confrontation
Panitan WATTANAYAGORN, Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok
This presentation argues that, on the one hand “ASEAN Centrality” has been an important element in Thailand’s national security strategy and foreign policy. The concept has not only been highlighted in the current official documents, but also implemented by the Thai governments in practice for the past decades. Recent research also (...)

ASEAN’s perspectives in Asia-Africa Growth Corridor Partnership
TRAN Thi Anh-Dao, University of Rouen (France) & Research Institute on Contemporary Southeast Asia (IRASEC, Thailand)
Since the 2008 global crisis, the weight of South-South exports has exceeded that of South-North exports : in 2018, 57.6% of total exports from developing countries (here referred to as "the South") were destined for other developing economies. Evidence does seem to show a new geography of international (...)

How Can ASEAN Navigate Through Geopolitical Rivalries
Chheang VANNARITH, Asian Vision Institute and Invest in Cambodia
The evolving US-China power rivalry causes significant threats to regional peace and stability and put constraints on the foreign policy options for the small states. Maintain agency is the matter of survival for small states. ASEAN is widely perceived as the shield to protect the interests of small states and middle powers in Southeast Asia. By exercising collective (...)

Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific : some general observations
Shafiah F. MUHIBAT, Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific : some general observations
Great power politics has been a persistent feature of history and there are differences with regard to how countries view the regional order, including how Southeast Asian countries view “Indo-Pacific.” There are various interpretations on the meaning and and what the concept entails have been put forth by various countries/regions. There is the (...)

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Session 3 / The Indo-Pacific from Southeast Asian Perspectives : Centrality and Multilateralism in Uncertain Times
Chair : Prof. Suthiphand CHIRATHIVAT, Chulalongkorn University (Bangkok)
The Indo-Pacific considered as a maritime “super-region” acknowledge the fact that the Indian Ocean has replaced the Atlantic as the globe’s busiest and most strategically significant trade corridor, whose geographical center in Southeast Asia. The “ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific” in 2019 (...)