Barring a major surprise, Timor-Leste will join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as its 11th member state at the bloc’s summit in Malaysia this month. Acceding to ASEAN will provide Timor-Leste with significant diplomatic and economic benefits through better integration into the region. But it also means that the United States and China will take a greater interest in the country and how it might factor into their strategies to counter each other in Southeast Asia.
Although there is no membership voting within ASEAN, decisions are forged by consensus. Thus, having Timor-Leste—the region’s only full democracy and a strident supporter of international law—as a new member could shift the bloc’s orientation ever so marginally away from an authoritarian China seeking to revise the regional order. It could also give Washington some newfound strategic advantages. For one thing, Dili aligns well with other nations that seek to maintain a “free and open” Indo-Pacific amid Beijing’s increasingly coercive tactics, especially in the South China Sea. Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Timorese President José Ramos-Horta, for example, in May spoke remarked at an international law and maritime security conference in May that for his country, “international law is not just an abstract concept. International law is the bedrock upon which we built our independence.” Indeed, it was a United Nations-led process that finally freed Timor-Leste—the eastern half of the island of Timor, with 1.4 million inhabitants today—from Indonesian occupation, more than two decades after its 1975 declaration of independence.
Beyond the South China Sea issue, Timor-Leste also has strong relations with the United States and its allies and partners in the region. In July, for example, Ramos-Horta praised Dili’s relations with Washington. Moreover, several of the United States’ close friends in ASEAN—Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam—will also look favorably on having Timor-Leste in the bloc because it reinforces their long-standing positions on the need to maintain a rules-based order.
ASEAN’s authoritarian members tend to be more ideologically aligned with China; this category includes Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and, to a large extent, Vietnam. The addition of Timor-Leste could build the influence of the democratic camp within ASEAN, which includes Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, as well as the hybrid regimes of Singapore and Thailand. This is not a trivial matter, considering that five out of the 10 current ASEAN members are, by my estimation, authoritarian. ASEAN’s charter clearly states that achieving and sustaining democratic governance throughout the region is a top priority: Article 1 commits the bloc to support and protect “human rights and fundamental freedoms” and to “strengthen democracy,” while Article 2 seeks to promote “adherence to the rule of law, good governance, and the principles of democracy and constitutional government.”
As the only country in Southeast Asia ranked fully free by Freedom House, Timor-Leste will likely side with the United States and other democracies seeking to counter the spread of authoritarianism and illiberal governance throughout Southeast Asia. When Myanmar’s military junta expelled Timor-Leste’s ambassador in 2023, for instance, Dili reiterated the need to restore democracy in the country.
Washington’s strategic advantages in Timor-Leste’s accession to ASEAN, however, are tempered by several potential challenges. One is that China remains the country’s dominant economic partner, particularly through its Belt and Road Initiative, which provides investment and infrastructure projects that small, poor states such as Timor-Leste so desperately need. In 2018, for example, Chinese companies completed construction on phase one of Timor-Leste’s first-ever expressway, known as Suai Highway. China is also building the Watuwa/Modobuti Irrigation Scheme, a major agricultural infrastructure project that is expected to double farmers’ incomes once it is completed in 2028. Timor-Leste’s forthcoming accession to the ASEAN Free Trade Area is unlikely to make any dent in China’s growing economic clout over the island.
Furthermore, Dili’s accession to ASEAN could complicate any attempt by the United States and its partners to leverage Timor-Leste’s favorable geographic position—sitting between Indonesia and Australia—to any great strategic effect. Prior to ASEAN membership, Australia in particular had sought to do this via its “Pacific Step-Up” program, perceiving Timor-Leste as giving Australia more strategic depth against China by essentially creating an obstacle for Chinese military forces on the way to Darwin. In 2022, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the countries’ new defense agreement would be the basis for increased defense and security cooperation, especially in the maritime domain. But even though ASEAN is not a security alliance, membership could still make Timor-Leste more circumspect about security partnerships outside the bloc—including with Australia and the United States—given the group’s nonalignment and concerns about individual nations undermining peace and stability.
Another complication obviously comes from the United States itself. Under the second Trump administration, many if not most of the traditional components of U.S. foreign policy—such as upholding democratic values or actively seeking to deter China—may be significantly watered down or abandoned, including in comparison with President Donald Trump’s first term. Early reports suggest that the forthcoming U.S. National Defense Strategy will prioritize Western Hemispheric defense as part of broader U.S. homeland defense and that great-power competition against China, though still a priority, may no longer drive U.S. foreign policy under Trump. The latest round in the U.S.-China trade war notwithstanding, Trump appears more interested in achieving some sort of reset with Beijing. He will have a chance to do this in late October on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in South Korea, where he is expected to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping. A Trump-Xi deal could hasten the arrival of a new world order based on great power-led spheres of influence. If correct, this implies that Southeast Asia would no longer be much of a priority to Washington, which might no longer care with which side Timor-Leste is aligned. Indeed, since the Trump administration came into office, there have been no mentions of Dili’s accession to ASEAN by any senior-level official, suggesting that it is simply not on the radar. Washington could thus be giving Beijing the strategic opportunity to make additional, unchecked inroads into the region. For its part, Chinalast year voiced support for Timor-Leste’s impending ASEAN membership and in 2023 elevated bilateral relations to the status of “comprehensive strategic partnership.”
Overall, Timor-Leste’s accession to ASEAN is a positive development for the United States and less so for China. Timor-Leste is America’s to lose in great-power competition—and given current trends in Washington, that outcome could very well happen.
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