What the new geoeconomics means for ASEAN
5 August 2025
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is at an inflection point. This StoneBench white paper, written in partnership with Public Policy Advisory Asia, looks at the challenges ASEAN faces, and provides strategic recommendations
We’re in an era of deep and disorienting flux. Globalisation, which has, for a long time, been the engine of economic success for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), is no longer everyone’s friend. Geopolitical stress has mounted over the past 24 months. Together, these trends have resulted in tariffs, sanctions, export restrictions, investment controls and technological bifurcation becoming tools of economic coercion.
For a region like ASEAN, whose success has long hinged on trade openness and external investment, this is a moment of reckoning. This report explores how ASEAN is being reshaped by a shifting geoeconomic order.