The biggest challenge facing Southeast Asia continues to be unemployment and economic recession, according to the State of Southeast Asia 2024 survey report released last week. The annual survey, now in its 6th year, guages the views and perceptions of Southeast Asians on geopolitical developments affecting the region, key international affairs and how ASEAN Dialogue Partners have engaged with the region over the preceding year.
Unemployment and economic recession was nominated by the majority of survey respondents (57.7%) as the most pressing concern, repeating the 2023 result. This was followed by the impact of climate change and more extreme weather events (53.4%) and intensifying economic tensions between major powers (47%), making up the top three challenges facing Southeast Asia, according to the report.
The survey also found that political divisions, territorial disputes and spill-over effects from conflicts continue to be the region’s top geopolitical concerns. The Israel-Hamas conflict and aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea were the top two concerns, with the Russia-Ukraine war and global scam operations tying for third place.
China continues to be seen as the most influential economic and political-strategic power in the region, and is the most strategically relevant of ASEAN’s eleven Dialogue Partners. In a stark difference between 2023 (38.9%) and 2024 (50.5%), China has now become the prevailing choice if the region were forced to align itself with China or the US. The US dropped from 61.1% in 2023 to 49.5% in 2024.
Australia ranked seven overall out of the eleven Dialogue Partners in terms of strategic relevance to ASEAN, however the individual results displayed the widest disparity among Southeast Asian respondents, ranging from 4th to 9th place. Singapore placed Australia as the 4th most strategically relevant, after China, the US and Japan. Thailand ranked Australia 9th, in a result that should raise some concerns for Australia’s diplomatic relationship.
The penultimate section of the report, Perceptions of Trust, measures the levels of trust in the major powers to “do the right thing”in the wider interests of the global community. More than half of the respondents (50.1%) had either “little confidence” (34.8%) or “no confidence” (15.3%) in China to do “the right thing” in contributing to global peace, security, prosperity and governance. Japan remains the most trusted major power in the region, with an overall trust level of 58.9%.
This final section of the survey gauges the extent of countries’ soft power in the region based on relocation preference and travel choices. Japan also ranked strongly in these results; as the favourite holiday destination (30.4%), and the preferred country for living and working if given an opportunity to relocate (17.1%) after ‘another ASEAN country’ (22.4%).
The report is published by the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute (formerly Institute of Southeast Asian Studies), a thinktank based in Singapore. The full report is available here.
