ASEAN can manage a typhoon – a Taiwan contingency is another matter

The ability of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to respond to crises has become a new focus (Opens in new window) as the region faces a growing set of geopolitical risks: maritime disputes in the South China Sea, Taiwan Strait tensions, nuclear risks on the Korean peninsula, and a precarious situation in Myanmar. One particular concern relates to ASEAN’s capability to coordinate crisis response for non-combatant evacuation operations (NEOs).

Southeast Asian states have conducted non-combatant evacuation operations – often individually but also by providing support for other states. In 2015 Malaysia led an evacuation (Opens in new window) from Yemen that also brought out small numbers of Thai and Singaporean nationals. Thailand helped 15 Filipinos evacuate (Opens in new window) with its citizens from Ukraine. Thailand also helped evacuate (Opens in new window) several Singaporeans and Filipinos, along with its citizens, from Myanmar in 2023 due to heavy fighting. But these operations tend to be on a limited, ad-hoc scale and often involve a third country that has no direct stake or influence in the region.

ASEAN has developed a set of mechanisms (Opens in new window) for crisis response, including a coordinating centre (Opens in new window), an emergency response and assessment team (Opens in new window), and a militaries ready group (Opens in new window). But these focus on natural disaster management rather than citizen evacuations from geopolitical conflicts. And they also face challenges, including ASEAN’s principles of non-interference and consensus-based decision-making, which slow down responses, and uneven capacity levels among ASEAN members.

A critical question arises: Can ASEAN develop the capability for crisis response coordination in a conflict involving a major power with direct economic, political, and military stakes in Southeast Asia? For example, during a hypothetical military contingency in the Taiwan Strait, ASEAN nations would face the immense task of evacuating hundreds of thousands of their citizens currently residing in Taiwan. This would require massive levels of supporting infrastructure, human, and financial resources from ASEAN and its members. Southeast Asian states would also come under geopolitical pressures (Opens in new window) from great powers, and face other challenges from economic contraction and financial meltdown to political instability.

The bottleneck is not the lack of institutions or frameworks but ASEAN’s ability to coordinate responses for crisis management. Given the wide range of challenges facing ASEAN, we should be realistic about its capacity and design solutions that can plug the gap between frameworks and implementation.

First, expectations on ASEAN’s role during a crisis should be moderated. Southeast Asian states will not rely on ASEAN-led mechanisms for evacuating their citizens. They are likely to draw on their own capacity, networks of bilateral relations and partnerships, and other multilateral arrangements. Some of these engagements can limit ASEAN members’ contributions to an ASEAN-led evacuation operation or constrain ASEAN efforts to form a shared consensus regarding the crisis.

Second, ASEAN members should develop their preferred vision for ASEAN-led crisis response coordination for NEOs. A centralised crisis response system can ensure consistency and control but might be slow in responding to changing situations on the ground. A decentralised approach allows for speed in managing particular tasks but might lead to duplication of efforts and fragmented response. ASEAN members should start discussing which option would best serve their preferences and current capacity. ASEAN has adopted a more centralised approach to disaster response with the One ASEAN, One Response (Opens in new window) framework. It is time for members to start discussing preferred approaches for NEOs.

Third, ASEAN will need to do more with less. ASEAN-led mechanisms will receive fewer resources during the crisis, as members are likely to prioritise their own efforts. At the same time, they still need to support less-capable members during a crisis and draw expertise where they can from extra-regional partners or other ASEAN-led mechanisms. For example, previous ASEAN Regional Forum Disaster Relief Exercises (ARF DiREx (Opens in new window)) and ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting plus exercises on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (Opens in new window) could offer valuable perspectives from the defence sector on maritime-based evacuation operations.

Fourth, previous evacuation operations conducted by ASEAN members can provide useful insights into what made these operations successful and what could be done better. For example, evacuees might require medical assistance and consular support, making the deployment of mobile medical units or field hospitals and emergency consular services necessary.

Fifth, ASEAN should start small (Opens in new window) rather than trying to do big things. ASEAN’s structural design of consensus-based decision-making and non-interference means major changes are hard to achieve. Instead, ASEAN can start by tackling small obstacles within its own crisis response system. ASEAN adopted two guidelines enabling ASEAN members’ missions to provide emergency assistance (Opens in new window) and consular support (Opens in new window) to ASEAN nationals in third countries. However, the consular assistance guideline remains a voluntary arrangement operated on a case-by-case basis and is subject to bilateral agreements. ASEAN members can start discussing alternative options to help accelerate the evacuation process, such as other communication formats to cover a wider range of assistance requests, and can ensure that all ASEAN members know each other’s emergency contact points. This approach is slower and does not yield immediate results, but momentum can be built over time to create a better functioning system.

This article is part of a series on ASEAN’s crisis coordination and response mechanisms following a private workshop hosted by the Lowy Institute in June 2026. The project was jointly led by Abdul Rahman Yaacob and Hunter Marston, Director of the Lowy Institute’s Southeast Asia Program, with the support of the Department of Defence’s Strategic Policy Grants Program.