The Importance of Being Earnest about Geopolitical Legacies in Nation Building and Region Building in East Asia

By OOI KEE BENG, in The Edge Malaysia, Oct 27 – 2 Nov 2025.

The deepest legacy that colonialism left behind in Southeast Asia are the nation-states that now control the colonialists’ contingently-defined territories.

By and large, all these countries were born during the Cold War that followed the Second World War.

This tells us that however much each of these countries have wished to see themselves as self-liberated, their perception of nationhood, their understanding of global economics, and their ability to comprehend the nature of global power have necessarily been inadequate. Nationalistic fervour certainly made matters more confused.

In short, there was a lot of fumbling in the dark by many of their leaders, until today.

The very fact of their independence and of their establishment as nation states were contingent on how global geopolitics played out in the first half of the 20^th century. More pointedly, the possibility of them building a strong national economy depended on how they related to the big powers and how the latter related to them.

Their understanding of sovereignty and their imagining of national ambitions were very much limited by those conditions. While they struggled with contestations and conflicts over ideology, militarism, and border and identity issues, each of them had to maneuver a hotly contested geopolitical terrain in which they played only a small part.

Geopolitical realities decided much of how nation building would and could develop in each case, and how the national economy building in each state would succeed, or not.

In that historical context, regionalism offered an opportune way for the foundling nation states to exert some influence on geopolitics in the immediate region. And so, ASEAN was formed. It is significant to my mind that this happened slightly less than two years after one of its founding members—Singapore—became independent. Singapore’s nation-building is closely allied to the beginning of official regionalism in Southeast Asia.

ASEAN in its first two decades could only define itself in a rather partisan manner. The restrain of its early ambitions reflected a level of caution that the novelty of national politics and nationhood required.

After the Cold War ended, geopolitical conditions allowed for a broader and more daring regionalist vision to develop. Within a geopolitical space confidently controlled by the USA, ASEAN quickly grew, aided not only by western investments and markets, but also by investments and markets from the northeast Asian countries.

The dogma that the gradual development of rules-based international trade would bring international peace as well as economic development to most countries was greatly embraced.

By the turn of the 21^st century, ASEAN was able to give expression to a regionalism that offers its member states much room for exercising geopolitical influence and for international posturing. It was quickly able to function in a pan-regional space that stretched far beyond Southeast Asian territories.

ASEAN was coming of age, youthfully exuberant even if inexperienced. This was a time when geo-economic globalization was proving to be a highly cogent wealth-creating process for most parties concerned.

China’s “reform and opening up” project was succeeding beyond expectations, only 30 years after Deng Xiaoping’s 1992 trip to Shenzhen wherein he signaled determind continuation of his thus far floundering programme. But in what way exactly has China’s rise become such a threat to the US that Washington should now dismiss its own geopolitical ideology that international trade is the answer to international conflicts? And in this new geopolitical situation, how will ASEAN transform itself? What role can ASEAN play? What answers can ASEAN provide to mitigate the current sad turn in geopolitics and geo-economics towards protectionism and confrontation?

Multilateralism is of course the lifeblood of ASEAN. But more poignantly, ASEAN’s regionalism has been a patient and cautious one; and inclusive, albeit that its principle of unanimity in decision-making often runs to a point of paralysis. This condition has naturally limited the regionalist visions of its individual member states. Be that as it may, ASEAN carries within it the vital notion of Mutualism. Big and small are to be treated as equals; all member countries are peers on principle.

At the moment, ASEAN does not seem to be in a good place, and its inherent weaknesses are strongly on show in the face of the latest geopolitical challenges. Characteristically, many of its member states are suffering from either internal conflicts or external pressure from the West, or both.

Be that as it may, ASEAN regionalism remains central to the nationalist ambitions of its members. The conversation remains that of integration, of community building.

One can recognize ASEAN’s three pillars for regional community-building to be simply a reflection of key concerns within each member-state’s domestic activities. While ASEAN strives for political-security community building, economic community building, and socio-cultural community building, countries undergo a similar process that I have elsewhere called state building, national-economy building and nation-building, respectively.

These pillars are relevant not only at the national and regional level; one could also imagine how this line of thinking would manifest itself at the pan-regional level, at the East Asian level.

1. Building a pan-regional socio-cultural community would mean increasing mutual understanding and embracing cultural differences. This would benefit from investment in tourism, in educational infrastructure, and in connectivity for people mobility;
2. Building a pan-regional economic community calls for a regionalizing of supply chains, ensuring win–win trade relations, strengthening various forms of security, and building physical and cyber connectivity with a view to developing corporate collaboration;
3. Building a political and strategic community would gain from ASEAN’s culture of diplomatic patience and performative goodwill, and keep a fluid balance between local, national, regional and international relations.

More generally, where strategic matters are concerned, discussions at various levels—between governments, think tanks, academics and NGOs across the region—is very much needed for mutual understanding and respect to become the basis for improving regional relations.

In short, aiming for a stable multipolar world, and region, should become the long-term goal in international relations in East Asia.

This would require a focus on developing what I would call “mutualist multipolarity”.

Something equally in need of attention is tha, in a multipolarising world, the status and situation of middle-power nations and small nations will be as important to discuss and formalise as are the responsibilities and roles of big nations.

As a final point in this transition, there is a great need to consider the hegemonic (in the Gramscian understanding) history and structure within which the modern history of the region has been developing; this is to enhance understand of the power configurations that are most relevant, and to see how these can be reconfigured.

This article is based on a speech given on 23 September at the panel titled “Enhancing Trilateral Cooperation and Southeast Asian Engagement in an Uncertain World” at  the East Asia Institute (NUS) Conference “Managing a Rapidly Changing World: Perspectives from China, Japan, South Korea, and Southeast Asia” held at Conrad Singapore. Datuk Dr Ooi Kee Beng is the Executive Director of Penang Institute, and Visiting Senior Fellow at Singapore’s ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. He is the prize-winning author of The Reluctant Politician: Tun Dr Ismail and His Time (SEAS), and The Eurasian Core and its Edges: Dialogues with Wang Gungwu on the History of the World (ISEAS).