The State of Southeast Asia 2025 Survey Report

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The State of Southeast Asia survey, now in its seventh year, continues to gauge the views and perceptions of Southeast Asian opinion-makers and thought leaders on geopolitical developments, issues affecting ASEAN and its Member States, and how ASEAN Dialogue Partners have engaged with the region over the preceding year. The objective of The State of Southeast Asia survey is to present a snapshot of the prevailing attitudes among those in a position to inform or influence policy on regional issues. The survey is not meant to present a definitive view of issues in the region. This year’s survey was conducted over a period of six weeks from 3 January 2025 to 15 February 2025. This period straddles the inauguration of Donald Trump’s second term as US President on 20 January 2025. 48.5% of respondents took the survey before and 51.5% after the inauguration. There were no discernible differences in the results recorded from the two groups. The survey was offered in six language options – English, Bahasa Indonesia, Burmese, Khmer, Thai, and Vietnamese.

A total of 2,023 respondents from ten ASEAN member states and Timor-Leste took part in the survey. For the first time, this year’s survey includes perspectives from Timor-Leste, which is pending formal admission to ASEAN.

There are six sections in the survey. Section I covers the profile of the respondents by nationality, education, affiliation, age, top news source, gender and political leanings. Section II explores the regional outlook and provides viewpoints on international affairs in the past year. Section III examines regional influence and leadership of major and middle powers. Section IV looks into ASEAN’s options in the changing regional political-security architecture. Section V measures Southeast Asians’ trust perceptions towards five countries – China, the European Union, India, Japan, and the US. Section VI gauges levels of soft power in the region based on travel and work relocation choices. The questions and results have been re-organised for optimal flow and reporting. Figures have been rounded up/down to the nearest one decimal point and may not add up to 100.0% exactly.

The State of Southeast Asia 2025 Survey Report was launched on Thursday, 3 April 2025. A distinguished panel comprising Dr Michael Green (Chief Executive Officer of the United States Studies Centre, Australia), Prof Liu Lin (Professor at the Institute of International Strategic Studies, Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC), Mr Peter Varghese (Chancellor of The University of Queensland, Australia), and Ms Yenny Wahid (Director of the Wahid Foundation, Indonesia) discussed the findings and shared their insights at the launch. Mr Choi Shing Kwok, Director and CEO of ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute and concurrent head of ASEAN Studies Centre, delivered the Welcome Remarks and moderated the discussion The State of Southeast Asia 2025 Survey conducted by the ASEAN Studies Centre at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute reveals climate change as the region’s top challenge for the first time, followed by unemployment and economic recession, and intensifying economic tensions between the major powers. Concerns over aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea, global scam operations and the new US leadership were the region’s overall top geopolitical concerns. Amidst these challenges, more than a third of regional respondents expressed concern that ASEAN was ineffective in coping with these political and economic developments and that ASEAN was becoming irrelevant in the new world order.

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METHODOLOGY We have continued to make improvements in the survey’s methodology. Eligibility criteria were tightened this year based on nationality, education, affiliation, and age. Respondents were further screened on their knowledge of ASEAN and level of interest in current affairs. Putting aside branching questions, the survey comprised 44 questions in total which took approximately 20 to 35 minutes to complete. It was conducted completely online using a mixed purposive sampling method. Respondents came from five affiliation categories: (a) academia, think-tankers, or researchers; (b) private sector representatives; (c) civil society, non-government organisations (NGOs) or media representatives; (d) government officials; and (e) regional or international organisations personnel. An equal 10% weightage was applied to the ten ASEAN member states’ responses to calculate the average figures for ASEAN as a whole. This is to ensure that the responses of each country are represented by equal proportion, given that ASEAN’s decision-making processes are based on each country having equal say, regardless of geographical or population size. Final analysis of regional sentiment was conducted on the weighted data set. A strict set of criteria was applied to remove duplicates, speeders, and straightliners in order to maintain data quality and integrity. For the first time this year, the survey includes perspectives from Timor-Leste, which is pending formal admission into ASEAN. As Timor-Leste is not formally a member of ASEAN yet, its country responses are presented in a separate row in each data table. Regional aggregated averages do not include Timor-Leste results.