ASEAN will be an irrelevant sideshow with all the action in BRICS

In 2025, Malaysia became the chair of ASEAN, taking over from the Lao PDR. At the same time, Malaysia becomes a partner country under the new tier below full membership in BRICs.

During Malaysia chair, the 58^th ASEAN foreign ministers' meeting will be held, followed by the 46^th ASEAN Summit in October. This will be alongside a number of other related dialogue meetings, including the ASEAN-United Nations Summit, the ASEAN-India Summit, and the ASEAN-Australia Summit. There will also be a number of other special-topic meetings.

In the build-up to Malaysia taking over the chair, the media has been playing up the special role Malaysian prime minister Anwar Ibrahim might play. Just recently, Anwar asked for former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to become his personal advisor on ASEAN affairs.

The realities of ASEAN

The realities of ASEAN as a regional political grouping are not encouraging. It could be argued that the stature of ASEAN has been on a downward trajectory, since the end of Thailan's Dr Surin Pitsuwan as Secretary-General of ASEAN in December 2012. No one with Dr Pitsuwan's passion, diligence, hard-work, and charisma has held the position since.

The ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) has been a terrible flop, since its introduction on January 1, 2015. The membership of Timor Leste has just dragged on, there was no success in trying to resolve the military skirmishes between Cambodia and Thailand over the 11^th Century temple Prasat Preach Vihear on the joint border, just over a decade ago. The military Junta in Myanmar and continued fighting in the country is a massive embarrassment to ASEAN.

It could be argued that ASEAN is a broken organization.

This time around with Malaysia at the helm, things look just as bleak. Its not the country's prime minister that makes things happen, but the foreign minister. Malaysia's foreign minister Mohamad Hasan is a light weight in regards to foreign affairs, being a state level politician for many years. He is not a Rais Yatim, or even a Syed Hamid Albar. Even the deputy foreign minister Mohamed Alamin has been primarily a state politician in Sarawak, and relatively new to the federal parliament. There are no more Tan Sri Ghazzali bin Khalids within the ambassadorial ranks, and very little talent left in foreign affairs within Wisma Puteh.

The appointment of former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as personal advisor on ASEAN affairs by Anwar came as a surprise. It appeared to be something of a spur of the moment request by Anwar to Thai prime minister and Thaksin's father Paetongarn Shinawatra, when she made a visit to Putra Jaya last month. Its questionable whether the Thai judiciary will grant Thaksin permission to leave Thailand to carry out such duties, with investigations over his hospitalization during his incarceration in prison, while he was serving his sentence.

Thaksin met with Anwar at Koh Lipe (in Thai territory) when Anwar made a working visit to Langkawi recently. Thai Television reported the two discussed a solution to the violence in the Thai deep south, and the fighting in Myanmar. Thaksin had just come from the border of Myanmar, where he purportedly spoke to representatives of rebel groups from Myanmar. Besides Thaksin's continued legal battle, he is tainted by the perceived role he played in the Tak Bai massacre in Narathiwat during his time as prime minister.

So, it's difficult to see how Malaysia will drive ASEAN to any substantive achievements in 2025.

The major bottleneck preventing any real progress within ASEAN will be the South China Sea issue and respective member attitude towards to the contestation of primacy and hegemony within the Nine-Dash Line and surrounding portions of ocean within dispute. Each nation's approach is varied, where it will be difficult to come to any common accommodations.

ASEAN will still be a meeting-fest, where the highlights will be the photo-opportunities around simple meaningless agreements, that weren't designed to achieve anything. Nothing of real substance can be expected, much less any strong ASEAN stand on any matter.

A pivotal year for BRICS

Meanwhile, BRICS now an expanded 'informal' block of emerging economies, which have nine members Brazil, China, Russia, India, South Africa, the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Egypt, and Ethiopia, and a new category of 13 partner states Algeria, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, Turkey, Uganda, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam. These countries together represent 46 percent of the world's population and 47 percent of world GDP.

BRICS is building new institutions such as the New Development Bank, and the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA), which will give member states alternatives to the traditional US Dollar and SWIFT transfer banking system, as means of trade.

Its not the BRICS configuration that is important on its own, but all the supplementary agreements, ranging from defence to technology, trade, and cultural/social exchanges going on that are significant.

One of the factors that may influence how BRICS progresses in 2025 will be the rolling out of the new US president Trump policy shifts during 2025. Many pundits believe the Trump administration will punish any country that is not acting in US best interests with tariffs and other trade barriers. Others believe this is Trum's ambit claim for negotiation.

What happens at BRICS summits are now globally important. Brazil is chairing BRICS in 2025. Although there are petty issues such as Brazil's rejection of Argentina's request for BRICS membership, such issues need to be resolved. There are still 8 more countries requesting membership.

Once again, commentators are divided upon their predictions about the impact BRICS on the world economy in the future. Some believe BRICS will quickly dump the US Dollar and even create a new trading currency, thus finishing the hegemony of the US currency. Others believe such predictions are highly ambitious for an informal organization just discussing issues and finding ways to assist each other. Others say, the ambitions of adopting a new currency are there, but haven't reached the surface yet.

To some degree, BRICS has reestablished the spirit of the non-aligned movement's Bandung Conference in Indonesia back in 1955, which was aimed to promote peace, cooperation, and freedom from colonialisation (or neo-colonialisation).

Malaysia certainly appears to have more opportunities within the BRICS group, than ASEAN. Malaysia will have more opportunity selling its natural resources, including oil palm and oil and gas. There will be deals in technology, especially artificial intelligence (AI) and digital economy. BRICS could be the key to Malaysia finding new sources for imports, and new markets for exports.

Certainly, BRICS will be where all the action is in 2025.