Cebu is hosting this week the Association of Southeast Asean Nations (Asean) 2026 Summit under the theme “Navigating Our Future, Together.”
Focusing on strengthening regional unity, resilience and connectivity, the event emphasizes the three main pillars of enhancing peace and security, building prosperity corridors, and empowering people through innovation and digital transformation.
Coming at a time when the world is rapidly changing amidst shifts in geopolitical alliances and threats of bigger nations assimilating smaller ones, the summit provides a perfect opportunity for Asean to reassess its position in international affairs and recalibrate its policy directions in preparation for what’s ahead.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s remarks in last week’s World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland may well be a good indicator of where nations currently are and which direction to possibly take in the future. Praised for its brutally honest take on world affairs, his remarks, addressed primarily to European countries, served as a global eye opener.
Of course, Carney was largely talking of Canada’s continued belligerence to the integration threats of United States President Donald Trump who has also repeatedly threatened to occupy Greenland. The Canadian leader hit what he described a rules-based order where “the strong can do what they can and the weak must suffer what they must.”
Carney further cited a 1978 essay by Czech dissident Vaclav Havel that explained how communism sustained itself by making citizens take part in pretensions to avoid trouble, likening the rules-based order to a propaganda where people are “living within a lie.”
Such an international rules-based order, Carney said, has made countries like Canada prosper. All throughout, however, he added that the order was “partially false,” where the strong and powerful exempted themselves from its rules whenever it was convenient for them.
“You cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration when integration becomes the source of your subordination,” the Canadian leader declared.
A strong rebuke against the political and economic policies of Trump, whom he did not directly mention, Carney’s speech sent shockwaves around the world as he portrayed the World Trade Organization, the United Nations and the Conference of the Parties climate summits as collective problem-solving mechanisms that are currently being under threat.
So, given Carney’s declaration, how will Asean reposition itself in the new world order? Hopefully, we will soon witness if Asean will actually second the Canadian PM’s assertion of power, which he described as “the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength and to act together.”
And while Carney’s tirades were directed against the US which he views as the biggest threat to smaller countries by weaponizing economic integration, leveraging tariffs, coercing through financial infrastructure and exploiting supply chains as vulnerabilities, Asean countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia are mutually facing threats of territorial intrusion in Asia by another superpower, China. How will Asean act in the midst of this persistent challenge?
One thing for sure, though, ASEAN must strengthen itself and stay true to its theme of acting together because, it the words of Carney, “if we’re not at the table, we’re on the menu” of the world’s superpowers.
Faced with constant threats, ASEAN can take heed of Carney’s call to “build a new order that encompasses our values, such as respect for human rights, sustainable development, solidarity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of the various states.”