Exploring the Dilemmas of the ASEAN Development Model in the Context of the New EU-ASEAN Strategic Partnership

Abstract

With the establishment of the strategic partnership between ASEAN and the EU in 2020, both sides have gained positive developments in different areas. ASEAN’s economic partnership has been enhanced, but it has also created new challenges and dilemmas for ASEAN’s development model. This study discusses the political, economic, and cultural challenges in the context of the new EU-ASEAN strategic partnership. As a regional organization, ASEAN has a loose organizational structure and flexible operational mechanisms, showing trends of internal integration and openness to the outside world. However, at the same time, ASEAN suffers from the dilemma of an inherently inadequate organizational structure, over-reliance on the economies of major powers, and declining influence in regional cooperation. In addition, under the analytic perspective of World-systems theory and the theoretical model of “regional whole”, the EU has increased its cooperative relations with ASEAN to resist China’s influence. There is also a clear non-reciprocity in EU-ASEAN cooperation. The resources the EU can mobilize are becoming more limited, which leads to the difficulties of achieving the strategic goals between EU and ASEAN.