Timor-Leste will be made a full member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) on Oct 26. President José Ramos-Horta of Timor-Leste often joked that joining Asean was more difficult than going to heaven. Not anymore.
After more than two decades of aspiration, the world’s youngest Asian nation has finally realised its dream of joining the regional bloc. When Dili gained independence in 2002, its leaders repeatedly declared that Timor-Leste would one day become an Asean member. For the record, the 11th membership holds the longest accession process for any new member in Asean’s history. It was granted observer status in 2023.
Lest we forget, Brunei joined Asean on Jan 7, 1984, barely a week after its independence. Vietnam was the first of the former Indochinese countries to join the bloc. Laos and Myanmar joined in 1997, while it took two additional years for Cambodia to join in 1999 due to its domestic situation.
At the time, Asean had no formal rules or criteria for admission. Economic and institutional readiness was not the issue. After all, it was the post-Cold War era, and young Asean simply wanted to promote regional peace and cooperation. After the signing of the Paris Peace Accord, Southeast Asia was able to consolidate further, enhancing stability and economic growth.
For various reasons, it has taken Asean a long time to decide to bring Timor-Leste into the fold. With the Asean charter in place in 2008, the bloc has become a rule-based organisation with political-security, economic, and socio-cultural frameworks. Some members preferred to delay Dilli’s membership for as long as possible, arguing that this small half-island nation lacked the necessary preparedness to comply with all these rules.
Furthermore, the country was simply too different from the rest of Southeast Asia. After all, Timor-Leste is the only Asean country where Portuguese is an official language, alongside the local tongue, Tetum. The Indonesian language is a working language.
Truth be told, the biggest barrier in the last lapse for joining Asean was Myanmar’s staunch opposition. Nay Pyi Taw has experienced both the best and worst of times with Timor-Leste.
During Myanmar’s democratic period between 2011 and 2021, especially after 2015, its ties with Timor-Leste blossomed. The two countries shared democratic ideals and even boasted the Nobel Peace Prize-winning leaders Ramos-Horta and Aung San Suu Kyi. The two nations supported each other in various international fora.
However, after the military coup in February 2021, their relations turned upside down. Dili became the region’s harshest critic of the Tatmadaw — Myanmar’s junta. It openly condemned the Tatmadaw’s power seizure and strongly supported the National Unity Government (NUG), Myanmar’s opposition group in exile. It even allowed the NUG to establish a liaison office in Dili early last year, much to Nay Pyi Taw’s fury.
Apparently, the two countries have already reached out to each other during Timor Leste’s Foreign Minister Bandito dos Santos Freitas’s visit to Nay Pyi Taw on Sept 17-19. Both countries reaffirmed their commitment to uphold the bloc’s fundamental principles and its charter, particularly non-interference in the internal affairs of member states. They also agreed to reopen their diplomatic missions and restore visa exemption.
Looking back at the 46th Asean Summit in late May, except for Malaysia, other members were uncertain whether Timor-Leste would be accepted this month. Indeed, just one day before their summit retreat, their foreign ministers were still insisting that Timor-Leste must stick to the roadmap prepared by the Asean Secretariat. If that were indeed the case, then it would take additional months or even years.
However, the next morning, when the heads of government held their retreat, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim managed to get a consensus with strong support from Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong that Timor-Leste should be admitted as its 11th member in October.
Myanmar, isolated and silenced, could not object. However, on June 14, Nay Pyi Taw sent a letter to the Asean chair threatening to block the membership, accusing Dili of “interfering in internal affairs”. The letter warned that if “Timor Leste persists [with] its blatant violation of the principles of non-interference”, Asean should reject its membership “and suspend all procedural steps until Dili rectifies its approach”.
As part of the accession process, at the recent Asean Economic Ministerial meeting, the ministers reviewed the progress made and gave Dilli a collective thumbs-up. As of Sept 26, it has already fulfilled most of the technical and institutional requirements for full membership that are enshrined in 66 key Asean Economic Agreements. For the other two pillars — political/security, as well as social and cultural, it has aligned with nearly all of them.
As a vibrant democracy, Timor-Leste’s entry will enhance Asean’s international image. The West must now have second thoughts about the bloc being a club of one-party rule or dictatorial despots. This Christian nation has one of the world’s freest presses and the region’s strongest democratic credentials — alongside some of the world’s highest-income economies.
“Democracy is our identity. We fought for it, and we will not change,” said a senior aide to President Ramos-Horta during a recent conversation in Jakarta. That statement captures the spirit of the youngest member of the Asean family.
Dili can also serve as a bridge between Asean and the Portuguese-speaking world. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will attend the upcoming Asean Summit as a special guest of the Asean chair — a symbolic sign of Timor-Leste’s expanding diplomatic reach. The new member is also part of the South Pacific Forum, linking Asean more closely with the Pacific community.
One frequently asked question is whether Timor-Leste will align itself with Western positions on key geopolitical issues. Asean members have long maintained diverse but moderate foreign policy outlooks, avoiding extremist approaches. The bloc’s collective decisions are based on resilience, pragmatism and consensus.
For Thailand, Timor-Leste carries very special meanings. The Chuan government (1997-2000) played a crucial role in the nation-building there.
Thailand led the United Nations Transitional Administration in East Timor during the 1999-2002 period. The late Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan and former commander of UN East Timor forces, Gen Boonserng Niemprasert, are still household names there.
At a recent conference in Jakarta, Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow posited that in a world of confrontation and division, Asean stands as a modest yet vital example of regional coexistence. No matter how uncertain the global environment becomes, he reiterated, Asean is here to stay — and to keep the region’s dream of unity alive.
With a new, young, bold member, the future of Asean looks more exciting.