Laos as ASEAN Chair: Flying into Headwinds

Laos is preparing to take up the Chairmanship of ASEAN for the third time in 2024. Unlike its previous experiences as chair in 2004 and 2016, 2024 may prove to be even more demanding as Laos is expected to lead ASEAN through another tumultuous year of challenges.

At the 24^th ASEAN Lecture, organised by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute on 7 December, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Laos, Saleumxay Kommasith was forthright in putting across a long list of multi-dimensional challenges facing ASEAN. This includes strategic competition between the major powers, the situation in Myanmar, the South China Sea, Korean Peninsula, Middle East, and Ukraine, the fragile global economic recovery, climate change and natural disasters. Laos has framed the 2024 theme as “ASEAN: Enhancing Connectivity and Resilience”.

Not unlike previous chairs, Laos has promised to keep ASEAN relevant by enhancing its resilience and promoting its centrality to overcome these challenges. At the handover ceremony of the ASEAN Chairmanship in September 2023, Laos’ Prime Minister Sonexay Siphandone highlighted that Vientiane would focus on further consolidating the ASEAN Community including enhancing connectivity and economic integration, narrowing the development gap, advancing digital transformation, promoting people-to-people-exchanges, climate resilience and health development. These areas are now translated into Laos’ designated priority areas of cooperation as unveiled by Mr Kommasith at the ASEAN Lecture.

In a media interview last month, the Foreign Minister expressed Laos’ determination to turn challenges into opportunities. It is looking forward to hosting close to 400 meetings and bringing a record number of people and tourists into Laos under its “Visit Laos Year 2024”.

More importantly, Laos wants to boost its standing and influence among major powers as it hosts and chairs meetings in all ASEAN-led mechanisms, including the East Asia Summit where the leaders of major powers including the U.S., China, Japan, India, Australia, South Korea, Russia, and New Zealand will be gathered in Vientiane.

As a small and landlocked country in ASEAN, Laos is vested to amplify its interest and broaden its economic options. As such, it has pulled out all the stops to succeed in its Chairmanship — at the least, in the procedural and logistical aspects. It was reported that the Laos National Steering Committee on the Chairmanship has started work on the improvement of roads and airports, budget, meeting venues, communication and internet facilities, tourism destinations, accommodation and other logistics associated with government delegations and foreign journalists. Most ASEAN dialogue partners are also quick to offer their support, such as the provision of logistical equipment such as vehicles and IT systems, capacity building and English language training.

To its credit, Laos has had a fairly decent track record as ASEAN Chair in 2016. The country has demonstrated that it was able to strike a compromise between opposing voices (the U.S., China, Vietnam and the Philippines) on the South China Sea. That was the lesson learned from the failure to issue a joint communique in 2012 during Cambodia’s Chairmanship due to disputes over language to frame the South China Sea disputes. While it is unlikely that the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea (COC) will be adopted during Laos’ Chairmanship, Vientiane would be expected to adopt a neutral position. However, such an overly cautious position may not revive the languished negotiations.

Despite its earlier success, Laos should not rest on its laurels. Although it has put forth a list of priority deliverables, they reflect the country’s risk-averse disposition and preference to focus on the safer aspects of ASEAN Community-building. As there are no specific details on what Laos plans to deliver, it remains to be seen if there will be new concrete initiatives for ASEAN apart from a long list of statements and declarations.

Laos’ inward focus stands in contrast with Indonesia’s outward and bold approaches as evidenced in its push for greater cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. As the Chairmanship is being passed from the biggest and boldest country in Southeast Asia to one of the smallest developing countries in ASEAN, observers are concerned about Laos’ ability to lead ASEAN in navigating through new geopolitical and economic developments. These concerns are valid: if Indonesia did not secure much success, Laos, with a significantly smaller weight, has its work cut out for it. Furthermore, there are doubts as to whether Laos would be a neutral Chair of ASEAN, considering its close ties with China. Some observers noted that debt pressure may result in Laos acting at the behest of its bigger northern neighbour. This might affect Laos’ chairing of key negotiations such as the COC.  

To compound matters, the challenges today are unlike 2016. The region will be watching to see how Laos handles regional flashpoints and issues, particularly the Myanmar crisis and the South China Sea. Following Operation 1027, Myanmar is witnessing unprecedented resistance attacks by anti-junta forces which could potentially see the weakening or even collapse of the Myanmar military government. As much as Laos has affirmed that it will continue with a “full and effective implementation of ASEAN’s Five-Point Consensus (5PC)”, the situation in Myanmar may change dramatically to render the 5PC inadequate to address the new situation, especially if the country were to break up. As conservative as Laos is, it will certainly need greater flexibility, adaptability, and creativity to find new solutions to assist Myanmar and its people. Laos will need to lead ASEAN in stepping up humanitarian efforts in affected states and address off-limits issues such as refugees given the widespread displacement of the Myanmar people.

Similarly, as tensions between China and the Philippines worsen in the South China Sea, ASEAN cannot continue to be a bystander. As a land-locked country, it is questionable whether Laos would have the gumption to make a difference on the South China Sea issue and make ASEAN’s relevance count. At least, Laos will be pressured to make progress in the negotiations of the COC regardless of whether such a document may be effective in situations of conflict.

Apart from rising tensions in Myanmar and the South China Sea, North Korea is expected to raise tensions in the region with more intercontinental ballistic missile tests. Middle powers including South Korea and Japan are expected to respond more strongly with greater military actions. The upcoming high-stakes election in Taiwan next month, depending on the outcomes, could further deteriorate the situation in the Taiwan Strait.

Even in the realm of easy wins — the attendance of the United States president at the ASEAN summits in 2024 — Laos looks likely to get the short end of the stick. In 2016, Laos saw the participation of U.S. President Barack Obama — the first American president to visit Laos. It is unlikely that President Joe Biden will attend the summits in October next year given that the presidential elections will be around the corner. Biden skipped the ASEAN summits in Jakarta in September.

Despite all of Laos’ good intentions and desire to be a competent chair, current realities and facts on the ground mean that it would be quite a hill to climb for Vientiane in 2024. The country will have to dig deep.

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Editor’s Note:
ASEANFocus+ articles are timely critical insight pieces published by the ASEAN Studies Centre.