ASEAN's Role and Future Economic Cooperation Under the US-China Rivalry: The Quest for Effective Democratic Leadership
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Abstract: Amid the US-China rivalry, the ASEAN role and future economic cooperation are uncertain. Deploying a qualitative approach based on documents as sources of data, this study aims to suggest democratic leadership as an intervening variable and examines future possibilities of the ASEAN role and economic cooperation under the US-China rivalry. There are three ASEAN's role future possibilities under the US-China rivalry: the honest broker (best-case scenario), a partial mediator (moderate-case scenario), and a dysfunctional organisation (worst-case scenario). The gradations linearly demonstrated an interlinked connection between the cooperation engagement and outcome possibilities. This study found that the best-case prospect, "an honest broker" could be materialised by implementing democratic leadership, an equally distributed, empowered, egalitarian decision-making kind of leadership determined by willingness, capacity, and acceptance. It could optimally encourage internal economic development and effectively manage cooperation with both parties through the distribution of responsibility, group member empowerment, and assisting all members in decision-making.
Keywords: ASEAN's economic cooperation, ASEAN's playing role, democratic leadership, US-China rivalry
DOI: 10.17576/sinergi.0302.2023.03
Article information: Submission date: 17 July 2023; Acceptance date: 16 October 2023; Publication Date: 31 December 2023.
Declaration and acknowledgement: The Authors would like to show their gratitude to SINERGI’s anonymous reviewers and their constructive feedback in improving the quality of the manuscript. Authors are also immensely grateful for their comments on earlier versions of the draft. No potential conflict of interest was reported.
Abstrak: Di tengah-tengah persaingan AS-Cina, peranan ASEAN dan masa depan kerjasama ekonominya berdepan ketidapastian. Dengan menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif berdasarkan dokumen sebagai sumber data, kajian ini bertujuan untuk mencadangkan kepimpinan demokratik sebagai pembolehubah perantara dan mengkaji kemungkinan masa depan peranan ASEAN dan kerjasama ekonomi di bawah persaingan AS-Cina. Terdapat tiga kemungkinan masa depan peranan ASEAN di bawah persaingan AS-Cina: broker yang jujur (senario terbaik), mediator separa (senario sederhana), dan organisasi disfungsi (senario terburuk). Pengredan ini menunjukkan kaitan linear antara penglibatan kerjasama dan kemungkinan hasilnya. Hasil kajian ini mendapati bahawa prospek terbaik, "broker yang jujur" dapat diwujudkan dengan melaksanakan kepimpinan demokratik, sejenis kepimpinan pengambilan keputusan yang seimbang, memberikuasa, dan egalitarian, yang ditentukan oleh keinginan, kapasiti, dan penerimaan. Ini dapat mendorong pengembangan ekonomi internal secara optimum dan menguruskan kerjasama dengan kedua pihak secara efektif melalui pengagihan tanggungjawab, pemberdayaan anggota pasukan, dan membantu semua anggota dalam proses pengambilan keputusan.
Kata kunci: Kerjasama ekonomi ASEAN, peranan ASEAN, kepimpinan demokratik, persaingan AS-Cina
DOI: 10.17576/sinergi.0302.2023.03
Maklumat artikel: Tarikh Penghantaran: 17 Julai 2023; Tarikh penerimaan: 16 Oktober 2023; Tarikh penerbitan: 31 Disember 2023.
Penghargaan dan pengisytiharan: Para penulis ingin merakamnkan rasa terima kasih mereka kepada pengulas tanpa nama SINERGI dan maklum balas membina mereka dalam meningkatkan kualiti manuskrip. Pengarang juga amat berterima kasih atas komen mereka pada versi awal draf. Tiada potensi konflik kepentingan dilaporkan.
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