Although there is no membership voting within ASEAN, decisions are forged by consensus. Thus, having Timor-Leste—the region’s only full democracy and a strident supporter of international law—as a new member could shift the bloc’s orientation ever so marginally away from an authoritarian China seeking to revise the regional order. It could also give Washington some newfound strategic advantages. For one thing, Dili aligns well with other nations that seek to maintain a “free and open” Indo-Pacific amid Beijing’s increasingly coercive tactics, especially in the South China Sea. Nobel Peace Prize laureate and Timorese President José Ramos-Horta, for example, in May spoke remarked at an international law and maritime security conference in May that for his country, “international law is not just an abstract concept. International law is the bedrock upon which we built our independence.” Indeed, it was a United Nations-led process that finally freed Timor-Leste—the eastern half of the island of Timor, with 1.4 million inhabitants today—from Indonesian occupation, more than two decades after its 1975 declaration of independence.
Barring a major surprise, Timor-Leste will join the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as its 11th member state at the bloc’s summit in Malaysia this month.
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