Timor-Leste's long road to Asean

This Sunday, when Timor-Leste finally joins Asean as its 11th member, it will mark a diplomatic triumph for one of Asia's smallest states and a moral test for the region’s most enduring organisation. For Dili, this long-awaited step is not about prestige; it is about survival, legitimacy, and opportunity. For the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), welcoming Timor-Leste completes the Southeast Asian map but also exposes the limits of its inclusivity.

- Ronny Sasmita

Timor-Leste's path to Asean membership has been long, deliberate, and at times uncertain. The country applied in 2011, almost a decade after independence from Indonesia, and spent over a decade waiting for approval. The hesitation was rooted in practical concerns. Asean questioned whether a nation of just 1.3 million people, with limited administrative capacity and heavy dependence on oil revenues, could handle the bloc’s demanding institutional workload. Yet Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines championed its entry, arguing that the regional family was incomplete without it.

For Timor-Leste, Asean membership is a strategic necessity. The country’s location between Indonesia and Australia makes it inherently part of Southeast Asia, but geography alone has never guaranteed belonging. Politically and economically, Timor-Leste has often been on the margins, relying on Western donors like Australia and the United States for aid and governance assistance, while turning to China for infrastructure development. Membership in Asean offers something different, not a patron, but a platform. It gives Dili a seat at the table where regional rules are written, and a buffer against great power rivalry that increasingly shapes the Indo-Pacific.