If ASEAN can couple its natural resource endowments with effective institutions and well-considered finance, it can become the leader in equitable and replicable decarbonization. By Mehmet Enes Beşer As the momentum of the world towards carbon neutrality picks up speed, ASEAN is at a turning point. Most ASEAN member countries have already submitted updated Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the ...
ASEAN’s challenge is not so much to introduce additional clean hardware, but to create the enabling environments—legal, financial, social, and regional. By Mehmet Enes Beşer Transition to sustainable energy technologies is not just a technical matter for ASEAN countries—it is a political, structural, and economic reorientation of development itself. From solar photovoltaics to premium biofuels, from geothermal power plants to ...
Charting a Steady Course By Mehmet Enes Beşer In a world of growing international uncertainty, Beijing–Bandar Seri Begawan’s low-profile upgrading is the best proof of the potency of pragmatism, mutual respect for the other, and of interests in it. Less high-profile than some other of China’s neighborhood-of-choice relationships, the Beijing–Bandar Seri Begawan one is actually becoming stronger and consolidating itself ...
In ASEAN’s drive for sustainable development, green technology innovation is not the ends justifying the means—an end in itself. By Mehmet Enes Beşer Green growth, or economic and environmentally sustainable as well as inclusive development, is increasingly the focus of ASEAN medium- and long-term development strategies. For an area confronting increasing energy demand, environmental degradation, and exposure to climate change, ...
Steel and Synergy By Mehmet Enes Beşer In the midst of geopolitics’ story of era infrastructure and development, the China–Laos Railway is a powerful counter-narrative—a project based not on competition, but regional interdependence and shared advantage. Stretching over 1,000 kilometers from Kunming in south-western China’s Yunnan Province to the Lao capital Vientiane, the railway is far more than a transport ...
ASEAN’s energy future crisis and structural risk are not something that can be solved on the supply-side alone. What it requires is an end-to-end system solution by technology, policy, finance, governance, and regional solidarity. By Mehmet Enes Beşer ASEAN member countries’ energy industries are changing as a result of rising demand, decarbonization requirements, and complex geopolitics. While the region is ...
Between Giants By Mehmet Enes Beşer The semiconductor competition is today one of the most strategic arenas of U.S.-China rivalry worldwide. The days of arcane technical supply chains and niche policymaking are over, for semiconductors today are the very lifeblood of contemporary economies—and a theater of geopolitical rivalry. The China-U.S. chip war is as much a struggle for technological leadership ...
Southeast Asia is not a chessboard, but a luxuriant network of diplomatic diplomacy of keen mind, and long memory. By Mehmet Enes Beşer Throughout the years of heightened strategic rivalry between China and the United States, Southeast Asia is normally portrayed as a geopolitics arena—a theater wherein the two great powers struggle over influence, domination, and strategic depth. That dyadic ...
Balancing Growth and Sustainability By Mehmet Enes Beşer The economic development journey of ASEAN has conventionally been accounted for by the narrative of trade liberalization, manufacturing performance, and demographic dividends. But as the region is facing the double challenge of post-pandemic recovery and climate change, an even higher level of economic transformation is being outlined—one founded on financial inclusion, green ...
Harnessing the Sun By Mehmet Enes Beşer Basking in the sunshine, increasing electric demand, and international pressure building to transition to cleaner energy, ASEAN is well-placed to emerge as a solar power leader. On Philippine rooftops, on rolling central Vietnamese plains, solar photovoltaics (PV) is one of the most promising green growth paths forward. But with this dormant potential, solar ...
Leveraging Middle Powers By Mehmet Enes Beşer Southeast Asia is uncomfortably in the middle of 21st-century great power rivalry. China-US competition speeding up with military interventions, economic decoupling, and competing visions of the region has placed ASEAN countries uncomfortably in the middle. With the South China Sea, cyberspace, and sea lanes as the fulcrums, regional strategic contours are increasingly defined ...
De-Dollarization in Motion By Mehmet Enes Beşer For decades, Southeast Asian economies have been plugged into a system controlled by the U.S. dollar. In trade settlements and sovereign reserves, in cross-border investments and financial benchmarks, the dollar was not just a currency—it was the linchpin of regional economic integration. But now, across the region—Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok to Manila—stealthy ...