ASEAN’s Balancing Act: Views from the FPCI-ERIA Perception Survey 2023

Collecting data from 1,722 respondents in the ASEAN region and Timor-Leste, the survey examines elites’ and the civil society’s views and attitudes toward four main players, namely China, India, Japan and the United States. [...] The result states that education, research and academic exchange is the most satisfied area of cooperation between ASEAN and the four countries, followed by investment (China, India, Japan) and defense and security (United States). [...] Although the survey’s result provides a glimpse of what the samples think about the four countries, further discussion on the rationale behind the result should be explored. [...] At the online debriefing session of the survey, a discussant asked an important question: what does ASEAN really want its dialogue partners to do on regional issues and to improve ASEAN centrality? My response is: ASEAN adheres to rules-based order built on principles in the ASEAN Charter, the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), the Declaration on the Zone of Peace, Freedom and Neutrality (ZOPF. [...] To improve the survey in the future, FPCI and ERIA should consider increasing the sampling number and expanding the scope of countries to Australia, European Union, New Zealand and Republic of Korea.