The landscape of regional diplomacy is shifting fundamentally. At the opening of the 39th Asia-Pacific Roundtable in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia executive chairman Datuk Prof Dr Mohd Faiz Abdullah articulated a challenging proposition: ASEAN and its wider Asia-Pacific neighbourhood must abandon the reactive posture of merely accommodating a fragmenting global order and instead seize genuine agency to chart their own strategic direction. This call carries particular resonance for Malaysia and Southeast Asia, where smaller and mid-sized powers have traditionally relied on principles like non-interference and hedging strategies to navigate competing great-power interests.
The distinction Mohd Faiz drew between adaptation and agency gets to the heart of evolving geopolitical realities in the region. Rather than measuring a state's strength by how adeptly it absorbs external pressures, he argued that true capacity lies in deliberate decision-making, the forging of coordinated responses and the strategic positioning that allows nations to influence outcomes rather than simply endure them. For ASEAN members grappling with intensifying Sino-American competition, a rising India, and unresolved territorial disputes, this reframing offers a philosophical foundation for a more assertive regional diplomacy. It suggests that smaller powers are not condemned to be flotsam on geopolitical currents but can constitute their own destiny through calculated choices and unified positioning.
Building resilience emerges as the foundational requirement for exercising this agency. Mohd Faiz emphasised that member states must strengthen internal capacities and institutional resilience at both national and regional tiers, ensuring continued delivery of essential public goods even when subjected to international shocks or mounting geopolitical tension. This resilience-first approach has direct relevance for Southeast Asia's development agenda. Countries that can maintain economic stability, functioning institutions and social cohesion regardless of external turmoil gain negotiating leverage and credibility on the world stage. They become partners worth cultivating rather than vulnerable states in need of rescue.
The positioning of strategic autonomy as central to agency addresses a chronic tension in Southeast Asian foreign policy. For decades, nations in this region have sought to preserve independent manoeuvrability while remaining embedded in interconnected global systems. ASEAN's famous centrality doctrine rests on precisely this balancing act—maintaining equidistant relationships with major powers while preventing any single power from dominating regional affairs. Mohd Faiz's framing suggests that autonomy is not merely defensive or passive; it is an active capacity to expand policy options and act with purpose despite competing external demands. This empowers smaller states to negotiate from positions of principle rather than capitulation.
The conference itself is structured around contemporary fault lines that directly affect Malaysia and the region. The evolving China-India axis, ASEAN's institutional relevance amid great-power rivalry, renewed nuclear security concerns, and the geopolitics of critical minerals and supply chains comprise the intellectual scaffolding for discussions. For Malaysia specifically, these issues translate into concrete policy challenges—managing commercial ties to China whilst preserving security relationships with the United States, navigating semiconductor supply-chain vulnerabilities, and securing rare-earth mineral access. The roundtable's deliberative format offers a venue for exploring these tensions without the constraints of official diplomacy.
Track 2 diplomacy, the category into which the Asia-Pacific Roundtable falls, occupies a distinctive institutional space precisely because it operates outside formal governmental channels. As Mohd Faiz explained, participants can pose difficult questions and entertain inconvenient answers that official diplomacy often cannot. This permits more candid exploration of divergent interests and emerging consensus on thorny issues. For Malaysia's strategic community, such dialogues furnish opportunities to float ideas, test positions and build unofficial consensus that may eventually percolate into official policy channels. The freedom to question prevailing assumptions without binding governments to immediate commitments renders these forums invaluable in the contemporary international system.
The roundtable's thematic orientation—shifting from navigating geopolitical uncertainty towards translating agency into concrete action—signals a maturation in regional thinking. Previous iterations focused heavily on how to manage great-power rivalry and adapt to structural shifts. This year's emphasis on active agency and resilience suggests recognition that Southeast Asian nations need not remain perpetual respondents to external stimuli. Instead, they can initiate frameworks, coordinate positions and influence the terms of regional engagement. This intellectual reorientation carries implications for ASEAN's institutional development and its capacity to function as a cohesive negotiating bloc.
The presence of senior figures amplifies the conference's significance. Australian High Commissioner Danielle Heinecke's participation in discussions on middle-power agency reflects Canberra's interest in how regional partners conceptualise their strategic roles. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim's scheduled keynote address on Thursday—the conference's concluding day—provides direct connection between intellectual deliberation and governmental perspectives. His remarks will offer signals regarding Malaysia's own conception of regional agency and how the government views ASEAN's capacity to shape outcomes amid intensifying strategic competition.
The invocation of agency as both philosophical concept and practical imperative addresses a genuine structural challenge facing ASEAN members. As the global rules-based order fragments and competition intensifies, smaller states risk marginalisation unless they develop coherent collective strategies and maintain internal resilience. The alternative—reactive responses to external pressures—can lead to inconsistent policies, institutional decay and vulnerability to manipulation. By framing agency as a necessity rather than a luxury, ISIS Malaysia's leadership has articulated an argument with urgent contemporary relevance for Malaysia and every other regional state.
Looking forward, the real test of this intellectual positioning lies in translating conference insights into coordinated regional action. ASEAN's consensus-based decision-making, whilst ensuring inclusivity, often produces lowest-common-denominator outcomes that fail to project decisive agency. Whether this roundtable's discussions can generate sufficient intellectual momentum to overcome institutional inertia and produce concrete policy adjustments remains to be seen. Nevertheless, the explicit centering of agency—as opposed to mere adaptation—represents a significant reorientation in how regional strategic thinking is framed. For Malaysia and its Southeast Asian neighbours, recognising that they possess the capacity to shape regional futures rather than simply absorbing external forces offers both conceptual clarity and practical hope.
