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2. Юго-Восточная и Южная Азия: в поисках ответов на глобальные вызовы
Асеан в «смелом цифровом мире»
На фоне экспертных оценок деятельности АСЕАН и прогнозов вероятных тенденций ее развития отклик Ассоциации на вызовы, порожденные Четвертой промышленной революцией, приобретает исключительно большое значение. Оценивая достижения АСЕАН в «предцифровую» эпоху как основу ее политики по противодействию цифровым вызовам, авторы определяют степень нынешней и перспективной готовности Ассоциации эффективно управляться с ними. Выделяя исследование из числа большого количества работ о влиянии Четвертой промышленной революции на АСЕАН, авторы проводят следующую центральную мысль – основная уязвимость АСЕАН проистекает из взаимного наложения застарелых и нынешних проблем, что обусловило основную причину недостаточной готовности Ассоциации управляться с цифровыми вызовами, а не серьезность этих проблем как таковых. Научная новизна проведенного исследования состоит в выявлении оптимального средства снижения этой уязвимости. Выводы и рекомендации авторов по данному комплексу вопросов определяют научную уникальность исследования.
Ключевые слова: АСЕАН, цифровизация, безопасность, азиатско-тихоокеанское многостороннее сотрудничество, инициатива Пояса и Пути, Индо-Тихоокеанский регион, Россия.
As scholars review ASEAN’s performance, as well as predict likely trends of its future development, the association’s response to the challenges presented by the Fourth Industrial Revolution becomes crucial. Assessing ASEAN’s pre-digital achievements as the foundation of its response to the emerging digital challenges, the authors specify the association’s current and prospective readiness to effectively cope with them. As distinguished from numerous writings on the aftereffects of the Fourth Industrial Revolution for ASEAN, the central argument of the chapter is as follows. The key vulnerability of ASEAN’s policy is the overlap of the long-standing and present ASEAN’s shortcomings as the central reason behind its insufficient preparedness to face the digital challenges rather than the seriousness of these problems per se. The academic novelty of the research comes from distinguishing an appropriate remedy to decrease this vulnerability.
The actuality and the academic significance of the research stem from the authors’ identification and analysis of issues critical for ASEAN’s future evolution. Among these issues, the pivotal are prospects for the association to lose its digital sovereignty as a result of the intensifying Sino-American contradictions over the digital issues, the emergence of new imbalances between and within Southeast Asian states with negative implications for the ASEAN Economic Community. The aftereffects of the on-going digitalization of economic exchanges for ASEAN’s multilateral dialogue platforms and initiatives in the economic and political-security sphere. The authors’ findings on this set of issues, as well as their assessment, determine the academic originality of the paper.
Keywords: ASEAN, digitalization, security, Asia-Pacific multilateralism, Belt and Road Initiative, Indo-Pacific region, Russia.
Introduction
The new period of globalization marked by an exponential increase of information flows with the concomitant benefits and challenges presents the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with serious policy dilemmas. By its very definition, the “brave digital world” can expand ASEAN’s possibilities to maintain the presently respectable rates of economic growth by exploring its new sources. But a deeper insight suggests that the same developments may well give the association strong reasons for concern rather than for optimism.
As the 2020 marks the year of realization of the ASEAN ICT Master-Plan and the middle point of ASEAN’s journey between the ASEAN Community to 2015 and to 2025, in which the digital competitiveness is given special significance, an interim assessment of what the “brave digital world” means for the association is a timely and relevant exercise.
Asean in the Pre-Digital Era: What Was and Was Not Achieved
Declaring that in the realization of ASEAN’s prospective plans to increase its digital competitiveness the previously developed foundation is an important prerequisite, the ups and downs of ASEAN’s digital journey will be assessed from this starting