Learning outcomes 

Upon graduation, fellows are expected to have a comprehensive picture of the Southeast Asian landscape of economic integration, including emerging trends, opportunities, challenges, and solutions. Fellows would also understand and apply basic economic frameworks and policy tools to analyzing cross-border economic issues. 

As the background for the whole seminar, this section first introduces frameworks as well as policy tools to understand and examine basic relevant issues. It then provides an overview of Southeast Asian economic integration.  

e.g., the economic growth of Southeast Asia, the establishment, evolution, and outcomes of the ASEAN FTAs, BRI, RCEP, CP-TPP, and IPEF.  

 

After the fundamentals in the previous section, this part will investigate the external economic integration of Southeast Asia. First, it addresses the bilateral connections between Southeast Asian economies and the world’s leading economic powers: the US, China, EU, Japan. It also analyzes the impacts of multilateral linkage such as FTAs between ASEAN and other partners, RCEP, BRI, CP-TPP, IPEF. Second, it probes into the influence on Southeast Asian economic integration of global issues such as COVID, supply chain disruption, the Ukraine war, inflation, energy tension, and climate change. Finally, it will study the geopolitical impacts on the region, including the US-China confrontation, the Taiwan crisis, and maritime disputes.  

 

Topic 3 – ASEAN’s intra-economic integration: opportunities and challenges  

This section dives deep into an important but under-discussed theme: the economic connections among ASEAN members. It will address critical issues of intra-integration, including the trends, opportunities, and challenges.  

e.g., FDI and trade among Southeast Asian nations, the impacts of AEC, and how to intensify and leverage internal linkages as a buffer against external turbulence.  

 

Economic integration is substantially affected by both internal and external contexts. The national factors (such as political economy, domestic reforms, and policymaking) are often under-studied in literature. As the seminar places priority on public policy perspectives, this section examines the impacts of national factors on economic integration.  

Team project: fellows from at least three nations will work in a team and work on a project related to the seminar theme. They are assigned in groups and start working on the project the week before the seminar. At the end of the seminar, they will deliver a presentation on various issues relevant to the seminar theme e.g., economic growth, digital economy, FDI, infrastructure, supply chain, policymaking, impacts of global challenges...of one or several Southeast Asian nations or major cities or major industries. Comparative and cross-nation analysis and views are appreciated in these team projects which are expected to add practical, diverse, bottom-up, and updated examples and perspectives of Southeast Asia to the seminar. 

Speaker: David Dapice

Changes in organizational structures—fewer management levels, wider spans of authority, existence of work teams—have led to fewer people with position power to “command” others to perform tasks.  The effective use of informal power and influence has become more important than ever.  In this workshop, we will briefly discuss evidence-based strategies for influencing, especially when one lacks power or position to “require” others to do what you want.  Participants will view and discuss a short film clip and make a plan for an upcoming persuasion or influence challenge in their workplace.

Speaker: Edward Cunningham

Speaker: Carlyle a. Thayer

This is the first of a two-part lecture. It focuses in-depth on the various factors that shaped Southeast Asia as a region and which led to the establishment of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN). The presentation is divided into four parts. Part 1 identifies the major developments shaping Southeast Asian’s identity in the pre-colonial epoch, the colonial era, Japanese interregnum, struggle for independence, and post-independence regionalism. Part 2 examines the development of ASEAN with respect to seven themes: the ASEAN Way, decision-making, institutionalisation, membership expansion, economic integration, community building and external relations. Part 3 examines ASEAN’s multilateral mechanisms, including the ASEAN Regional Forum, ASEAN Plus Three,  East Asia Summit, ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Plus, and Enlarged ASEAN Maritime Forum. With this as background, Part 4 discusses seven current geopolitical issues: intra-mural differences among ASEAN members, development gap, Mekong River sub-regionalism, post-military coup Myanmar, claimants and non-claimants in the South China Sea, review of the ASEAN Charter and relations with major powers. 

 Speaker: Carlyle a. Thayer

This is the second of a two-part lecture. This presentation focuses on the impact of current global developments on Southeast Asian. It is divided into six parts. Part 1 summarises the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the region and the current state of play. Part 2 provides a detailed framework for understanding China’s rise under six headings: Xi Jin-ping’s China Dream, what Xi aspires to, military modernization, continental and maritime security, Taiwan reunification and the South China Sea. Part 3 explores China-U.S. strategic competition by examining U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy, the formation of the Quad and AUKUS, maritime domain awareness, and U.S. Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. Part four analyses the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine on Southeast Asia and implications for North Korea and Taiwan. Part 6 provides a summary and offers six conclusions on the impact of COVID-19, Russia’s war in Ukraine, China’s post-COVID economic growth prospects, global economic growth, global polarisation, and globalisation and decoupling.

Moderator: Huynh Trung Dung, Lead Faculty for Public Policy, YSEALI Academy 

Moderator: Huynh Trung Dung, Lead Faculty for Public Policy, YSEALI Academy 

The inflation has been letting up. Commodity prices, especially oil has become expensive. 

In Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia, the impact of rising oil prices is evident in the transport, housing, electricity, gas, and other sectors. Malaysia just announced a 30-50% increase of electricity tariff for manufacturing sectors who export goods. Electricity tariff is sensitive to movement of global fuel prices. 

 

Asian nations, particularly those who are heavily dependent on the imported fuels should take measures for energy security. 

 

Energy efficiency could also go a long way in controlling soaring oil prices. However, gradually transitioning towards renewable energy sources to drive economic growth is the only way to reduce oil dependency.

 

Indeed, SEA countries, Vietnam pertain huge geographical potential for renewable energy development. Policies and incentive mechanisms have been in place to facilitate the gradual renewable energy transition. 

 

Just recently on Dec 14, Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) mobilizes US$15.5 billion to support Vietnamese green transition, 3 key targets: 

1.    reduce the volume of emissions generated by the electricity sector.

2.    reduce the number of coal-fired power plants in Vietnam

3.    Develop more renewable energy and more effective energy infrastructure

 

It is obvious that green transition is an inevitable movement for Vietnam's sustainable development. And it is exceptionally valid to adapt to the Ukraine crisis. 

Furthermore, the continued conflict could also lead to a significant reallocation of supply chains, benefiting some countries like Bangladesh, India or Vietnam. 

 

It means that growing demands of MNCs for renewable energy to achieve their carbon emission reduction targets and enhance competitive advantages in terms of ESG compliance are foreseen.

Michael Luong, CEO, Asia Clean Capital Vietnam Company Ltd.