On 5th January 2024 from 9:30 to 12 noon at AmCam Exchange, CCRS organized its first Public Lecture on “ASEAN 2024: What Lies Ahead During Laos’ ASEAN Chairmanship?” by the Distinguished Speaker, Mr. Kavi Chongkittavorn, Veteran Journalist on regional affairs. Among the 50 participants, there were CCRS researchers, university students, civil society organizations, journalists, a
Mr. Him Raksmey, Executive Director of CCRS made opening remarks by welcoming all participants to the event and mentioned that this public lecture aims to reflect on experiences from the 2023 Indonesia’s ASEAN Chairmanship and find out how Jakarta had fared over the burden of its balancing act involving diplomatic as well as economic skill throughout 2023, the year of intricate mesh of opportunities and pitfalls. Furthermore, he expected the distinguished speaker would share his deep knowledge and rich perspective on Loas PDR’s intention to reset the trajectory of ASEAN during this year, showcasing its diplomatic acumen as 2024 ASEAN’s Head beyond being known as a small state’s bystander to become a real transformative ASEAN pathfinder, capable of navigating the complicated Indo-Pacific region filled with external pressures and instability.
The participants have learned a lot from Khun Kavi’s excellent presentation entitled “Enhancing Connected/Resilient ASEAN” from which he unpacked Laos’ global situation in 2024 and Laos’ priorities for connectivity and resilience. He also shared his rich knowledge of the significance of the Lao Chair with 9 priorities: four areas related to enhancing connectivity and five areas related to enhancing resilience. Our Distinguished speaker stressed the important role of a small state in ASEAN can play in making a substantive contribution to the regional bloc more connected and resilient, as well as discussing the complex issues related to the Myanmar crisis. He stipulated that there might be a breakthrough in delivering humanitarian assistance to the affected communities inside Myanmar.
During the Q and A sessions, there were interactive exchanges between our guest lecturer and the participants with questions regarding the ability of Laos to enhance the ASEAN longstanding characteristics of unity in diversity, centrality, and inclusive development as well as how Laos would lead the regional to withstand the intensification of strategic competition between China and the United States as well as whether Laos can break the stalemate on how to operationalize the ASEAN Five Points Consensus (5PC).
At the closing remarks, Amb. Pou Sothirak, Distinguished Senior Advisor to CCRS mentioned that all of us who are the proponents of ASEAN, hope to see how Laos can showcase considerable strategic autonomy and initiative, exhibiting leadership in the reconstruction of regional order to serve as a model for small country’s ability in guiding the regional bloc navigate the turbulent multipolarity world order in the Indo-Pacific region, particularly in its efforts to hedge against “a new cold war” borne out from major powers’ competition as well as push for a breakthrough the 5PC in the situation in Myanmar. On behalf of CCRS, he thanked Khun Kavi Chongkittavorn for the outstanding presentation and expressed appreciation to all participants for the valuable time taken to attend this public lecture.
Press Clippings:
Khmer Times
