Can Thailand lead reboot of the ACD?

In 2002, Thailand brought together major Asian nations to form the Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD). It was a bold and visionary move to create a powerful platform to foster pan-Asian economic integration after the 1997 Asia financial crisis or the Tom Yum Kung crisis.
However, the ACD has yet to live up to its potential in the more than two decades that have elapsed. The geopolitical landscape has shifted, demanding a proactive Asian role in global affairs, but the ACD has earned the reputation of being an Asian talk shop.
At the June ACD Foreign Ministers Meeting in Tehran, national leaders agreed to Thailand’s proposal to serve as the ACD chair next year. As such, the Thai government now has an opportunity to revitalise the ACD.
But first, let us recall that the ACD was the brainchild of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the father of Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. Akin to his political comeback in Thailand, the ACD will be high on the government’s agenda.
Second, Ms Paetongtarn will participate in the 3rd ACD Leaders’ Meeting in Doha, Qatar, on Oct 2-3. Her maiden appearance there could be a major turning point for her and the future of the ACD. As the region’s youngest female prime minister and a representative of the founding nation, she is in a unique position to reinvigorate the ACD. That could explain why she opted for the ACD instead of attending the UN-sponsored Summit for Tomorrow in New York City last weekend.
Third, after the ACD function, she is scheduled to participate in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean)-related summits in Vientiane, Laos, from Oct 9 to 11. Her Asean colleagues would like to hear her insights and thoughts on Asean’s direction.
While the ACD might have a talk shop image, the bloc keeps expanding. Currently, there are 35 member states. Among them are the 10 Asean member countries, Japan, South Korea, China, India, Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iran, and Afghanistan, to name but a few. The latest member is Palestine, which joined the bloc in 2019.
ACD is the first organisation of its kind to cover the entire Asian continent, which has roughly 4.2 billion people, including the world’s most populous countries such as China, India, and Indonesia. This broad membership allows the ACD to serve as a forum for dialogue and cooperation among diverse nations. When Thailand hosted the 2nd ACD Leaders’ Summit in Bangkok in 2016, its theme was “One Asia, Diverse Strengths”.
However, given the present geopolitical reality, this theme could also be problematic.
For instance, at this critical juncture in the post-pandemic world, the ACD’s powerful Asian countries are not in sync with one another in facing increasing superpower rivalry. This is a far cry from the past. When the economic crisis hit Asia, China and Japan played a leading role in setting up reserve funds to aid weaker economies, and it became the golden years of the so-called Asean+3.
Today, their achievements, including the Chiangmai Initiatives for Multilateralization, Asean+3 Emergency Rice Reserve and Asean Bond Market Initiatives, to name just a few, remain the hallmarks of their cooperation. Alien concepts such as decoupling, de-risking and friendshoring were unknown back then.
Today, China, Japan, and South Korea have different preferences and interests to reflect in their bilateral and collective relations. Therefore, the ACD’s main objective should be to consolidate Asia on its terms, leveraging its diversity constructively to build resilience and cooperation across multiple sectors.
Notably, all-powerful Asian political and economic powers today belong to the ACD. In retrospect, the past two decades have largely been dominated by China’s meteoric rise, which has often overshadowed pan-Asian efforts to foster cooperation among other Asian countries. Since 2002, the ACD foreign ministers have been meeting annually on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly to discuss regional projects and update their cooperation.
The ACD projects and activities are currently contained in the ACD Vision for Asia Cooperation 2030, which is aligned with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
Individual ACD members have agreed to serve as prime movers to manage the cooperation on six key pillars: connectivity; science, technology and innovation; education and human resource development; interrelation of food, energy and water security; culture and tourism; and promoting approaches to inclusive and sustainable development. For instance, Thailand, Bhutan, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait are the prime movers on the latter pillar. But progress has been slow.
However, given the present geopolitical landscape, the upcoming Doha meeting could have a more assertive security tone despite the prevailing theme of sports diplomacy. Qatar hosted the successful World Cup in 2022 and has accorded high priority to the role of sport in empowering people, promoting cooperation, and enhancing people and security in the region. The Middle East crisis could top the agenda for discussion as the host has been active in the region’s peace-making process.
To stay relevant, the ACD now has a permanent secretariat in Kuwait City with proper rules and procedures as well as the agreed guiding principles.
At the Tehran meeting in June, Thailand proposed several initiatives, such as the organisation of meetings in formal and retreat formats and a thematic conference on global architecture, as well as the establishment of an ACD fund.
Thai officials who are familiar with the ACD all agree that its potential is enormous, but it requires leadership and vision.
As such, the stakes are high for Thailand in fulfilling this trajectory. Ms Paetongtarn has a big responsibility if she wants to make her father’s idea a force to be reckoned with. More specifically, she needs to show leadership, promote cooperation among the Asian nations and, most importantly, create a more balanced global order.
Under its helm, Thailand wants to maintain the comfort level among members and enhance collaboration between the ACD and other international organisations.
Furthermore, it hopes that it can lay a further foundation for the ACD to become a genuine policy dialogue forum that links Asian cooperation and transforms the continent into “a broader Asian community that is interdependent, promotes understanding, mutual trust and mutual interests and serves as a catalyst to find common solutions to global challenges”. These lofty objectives were stated by the Thai chair back in Bangkok in 2016.
In addition, Thailand wants to see more cooperation between the members and the private sector under the ACD Connect Business Forum. The combined GDP of ACD countries is approximately US$60-70 trillion (2 to 2.3 quadrillion baht).
Therefore, more investment and trade among Asian nations will occur through strengthening supply chain resilience, including maritime and land connectivity. However, it still remains to be seen whether the ACD can be rebooted and usher in a new era in which it will be the signature of the Asian century.
Kavi Chongkittavorn is a veteran journalist on regional affairs.