The world can learn diplomatic lessons from Asean, East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta has said in a strongly worded rebuke to existing global power structures.
He acknowledged that Asean was "not heaven on earth", achieving consensus was "frustratingly slow" and security challenges persisted, singling out Myanmar's civil war.
"Nevertheless, in a world where bridges are being burned faster than they are built, Asean provides lessons on how sustained dialogue [and] engagement can safeguard against conflict and deliver shared benefits," Ramos-Horta told delegates and officials at the defence forum.
"These are the thoughts of despair and hope that came to me as I watched the abysmal failure of global leadership resulting in the devastating wars in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, Iran, consequences of which reverberate across the world."
He noted that Asean was not conceptualised in a tranquil period and that its success was not that it eliminated differences. "It did something more modest and perhaps more profound: it planted a banyan tree, and under its foliage leaders gathered and plotted the end of wars."
Ramos-Horta slammed the United Nations Security Council as "sclerotic" and "irrelevant" and a "sad mirror of the world today", noting that expanding the council or eliminating veto powers might not be sufficient for it to be a credible guardian of international security.
"We all routinely speak of preserving the rules-based order, but rules do not survive because they are printed in charters. They survive because states choose restraint, consistency; choose dialogue to resolve grievances. Sustained security cannot come from the barrel of a gun, from coercion and fear," he said.
Pointing to the disputed waters of the South China Sea, the East Timor president urged preventive diplomacy to stop any escalation, arguing that all countries involved wanted peace.
"Someone must have the audacity to declare the South China Sea a zone of peace, not necessarily that everyone has to abandon their legitimate historical legal claims, but do not allow these claims to freeze initiatives that would, in fact, gain for everybody more confidence and then lessen tensions," he said.
East Timor joins Asean
Joanne Lin, senior fellow and coordinator of the Asean Studies Centre at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, said Ramos-Horta's critique of the international system was consistent with the concerns of small and middle powers that rules were being applied more selectively, while diplomacy was increasingly shaped by power politics.
"In that sense, the president was both defending Asean's patient diplomatic culture and reminding the wider world that keeping dialogue alive, even when imperfect, remains an important part of regional and international stability," Lin said.
She noted that while Asean was often criticised for moving slowly and failing to resolve crises decisively, the regional bloc helped keep channels open and prevented differences in Southeast Asia from hardening into open confrontation.
"For a small state like East Timor, this emphasis on dialogue and restraint reflects its own experience of conflict, reconciliation and state-building, particularly with Indonesia. This is a lesson that Asean can learn too, given the context of other intraregional conflicts such as Cambodia and Thailand," Lin said.