Summary of the Global South and Southeast Asia Forum

摘要：From June 10 to 12, 2025, the “Global South and Southeast Asia” Forum was held in Jakarta, Indonesia. Co-hosted by Beijing Longway

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《文化纵横》邮发代号：80-942

Knowledge Decolonization and the Autonomous

Development of the Global South*:

Summary of the Global South and

Southeast Asia Forum

✪ Longway Foundation

【导读】From June 10 to 12, 2025, the “Global South and Southeast Asia” Forum was held in Jakarta, Indonesia. Co-hosted by Beijing Longway Economic and Social Research Foundation, Institute for a Community with Shared Future at Communication University of China, Shanghai Chunqiu Institute for Development and Strategic Studies, and the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Indonesia, and organized by the Global South Network (GSN), the forum aimed to foster in-depth dialogue among intellectuals from Global South countries and explore pathways for innovative development models amid the changing global landscape.

This forum brought together 38 experts and scholars from 10 countries across China and Southeast Asia. All participants, while being influential in their respective regions and fields, also serve as key intellectual forces driving the new development agenda and the decolonization of knowledge in the Global South.

This article is compiled from the discussions at the Global South and Southeast Asia Forum and authored by Wang Ruxi. We extend our gratitude to the contributions of scholars and experts including Awang Azman Awang Pawi, Chang-Yau Hoon, Fernando T. Aldaba, Fachru Nofrian, Helio A.X. Mauquei, Hilmar Farid, Hoang Hue Anh, Hoang Thi Ha, Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Kin Phea, Kong Tao, Li Xiaoyun, Liu Hong, Lucio Blanco Pitlo III, Lye Liang Fook, Max Lane, Narong Petprasert, Neak Chandarith, Pan Yue, Qin Beichen, Rommel Banlaoi, Semiarto Aji Purwanto, Shandre M Thangavelu, Shofwan Choiruzzad, Syed Farid Alatas, Tran Thanh Hai, Vannarith Chheang, Vivi Alatas, Wang Min, Xu Jintao, Xu Liping, Yin Zhiguang, Zha Daojiong, Zhou Yongmei.

▍ From the Bandung Conference to the Global South

The “Global South” is the shadow cast upon the world map by centuries of colonial plunder. Measured by GDP per capita, countries of the Global South, including China, generally exhibit a state of relative poverty compared to the Global North, a disparity rooted in colonialism. Countries of the Global South have all experienced colonization, domination, and exploitation by colonial powers. Take Indonesia, for example. The immense wealth plundered during Dutch colonial rule left the country with a weak industrial base, low education levels, high illiteracy rates, and a heavy burden of foreign debt inherited from the colonizers when it gained independence in 1950. This condition of extreme poverty resulting from colonial plunder was common among newly independent nations like China, India, and many Southeast Asian countries.

Since the end of World War II, although the Western colonial system has largely disintegrated in form, its internal hierarchical order and power structures have persisted, creating ongoing tension with the efforts of newly independent nations to establish a more equitable international order. In his opening address at the 1955 Bandung Conference, former Indonesian President Sukarno foresaw that colonialism, after its formal end, would continue to exist in new forms. Among the many forms of deprivation under colonialism, the most profound is the deprivation of imagination. In the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher famously coined the expression “TINA” — “There is no alternative.” Amid the wave of neoliberalism, doctrines such as marketization, privatization, and deregulation became unquestionable dogmas, accepted by almost all countries worldwide. This market-oriented, highly individualistic ideology was portrayed as the sole driving force for the common future of humanity. The Western-dominated world system of that time possessed the technology and methods for industrialization and global expansion, while most of the world lacked corresponding capabilities. This dual inequality, both material and cognitive, caused countries of the Global South, when faced with powerful external forces, to gradually lose confidence in shaping the world’s future in their own way. This state can be defined as Ontological Incapacity—that is, the loss of the ability to independently imagine the future of the world at an ontological level. Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History” thesis, proposed in 1989, was a continuation of this line of thought, arguing that humanity’s exploration of institutional forms had reached its end, with the American model being the final answer.

The aforementioned narratives of “there is no alternative” and the “end of history” reflect a theoretical naïveté within political and intellectual circles since the 1980s. For the countries of the Global South, the neoliberal agenda, epitomized as the “Washington Consensus”, reconstructed new dependency relationships by promoting the liberalization of trade and foreign investment, thereby reversing the efforts these nations had made to escape their colonial legacy after independence. Subsequently, colonialism has taken two new forms. First, the rise of financial capital blurred or concealed the distinction between direct investment and financial investment. Second, the emergence of new forms of technological domination related to technology made intellectual property one of the core elements of international competition, profoundly changing the rules and landscape of technological competition and industrial development among nations, and establishing the framework for the subsequent technological competition between China and the United States.

Whether in the form of the Washington Consensus or later forms of domination, the Western-led modernization project has brought a series of problems to the Global South countries, such as structural dependency on raw material exports, foreign capital penetration, climate vulnerability, environmental degradation, debt burdens, and external shocks. Faced with these challenges, the countries of the Global South urgently need to develop their own development frameworks rather than relying on the long-established model of globalization.

Today, 70 years after the Bandung Conference, the Global South accounts for 85% of the world’s population, contributes nearly 40% of global GDP, and is projected to include three of the world’s four largest economies by 2030: China, India, and Indonesia. The historical moment represented by the Bandung Conference should not be reduced to nostalgia but should be transformed into a catalyst for driving global change. The revival of the Bandung Spirit embodies the shared vision and political practice of the Global South in its pursuit of a better future.

▍ Establishing the Subjectivity of Southern Knowledge

The Global South is not merely a geographical category but also a knowledge and political domain. In the global knowledge production system, the Global North, as the former colonial metropole, has long occupied a central position, casting itself as the producer of knowledge while relegating the South to the role of research subject and data provider. This knowledge-power structure, rooted in colonialism, has led to a pervasive epistemological “Eurocentrism” in the humanities and social sciences, which disguises Europe’s specific historical experiences and perspectives as universal truths. For example, the series of wars fought between Europeans and Muslims over Palestine from the 11th to the 13th centuries are referred to as the “Crusades” in Indonesian, Arabic, Persian—that is, in almost all languages. This naming originates from the European framing of the conflict as a war of Christianity against Islam. However, for the Muslim world at the time, this was not a purely religious conflict. Under Islamic rule, Palestine was home to many Arab Christians living peacefully, and when European Christians arrived in Palestine, they also robbed and killed Orthodox Christians. It was not until the 19th century, with the rapid expansion of European colonial influence and the global spread of European education, that Muslims began to use the term “Crusades” in Arabic, Persian, or Malay. The use of this terminology, in fact, reflects how their understanding of the world was reshaped through colonial epistemic dominance.

Similarly, the commemoration of Magellan’s first circumnavigation of the globe is portrayed in the Eurocentric narrative as a great achievement for all humanity and a milestone in the Age of Discovery. However, viewed from the perspective of the Global South, this event and the subsequent “discoveries” by Columbus, da Gama, and others actually marked the beginning of centuries of bloody colonial rule, constituting a civilizational catastrophe rather than a celebration. Expressions like “discovering the New World” erase the fact that Indigenous peoples of the Americas had long been existing there, and historical evidence suggests that Africans may have even known about or even reached the Americas before Columbus.

In the humanities and social sciences, the harm of false universalism extends beyond narrative distortion to the suppression of local voices from the Global South. By denying the complexity and agency of non-Western civilizations, it provides legitimacy for colonial conquest. For instance, portraying Indigenous American societies as being in a “pre-civilized” state, lacking state governance, sophisticated political thought, or organized religion, served as an intellectual degradation and erasure that paved the way for the colonizers’ occupation and rule. This logic closely mirrors the claims made about Palestine during the rise of Zionism in the 19th century. Its slogan, “A land without a people for a people without a land,” justified its colonial project by fabricating the notion of a Palestine “without civilization.”

This logic of objectification also exists in the cultural sphere. Many cultural policies treat culture as an aesthetic ornamentation or a tool for tourism promotion, while ignoring the deep knowledge systems behind it. The cultural heritage preservation projects of organizations like UNESCO also tend to treat culture as a static artifact of a specific historical moment, rather than a living, evolving practice. Countries of the Global South need to reclaim cultural subjectivity, recognizing that culture is not merely a backdrop for economic or political change, but the core structure through which social imagination and transformation are expressed. It is essential to shaping the Global South into a community with a shared vision. From the Afro-Asian Writers’ Conferences and Afro-Asian Film Festivals of the 20th century to transnational cultural exchanges in today’s digital era, culture has always been a force for imagining alternative worldviews and fostering solidarity beyond national borders. Therefore, to autonomously define its future, the Global South must regard culture as the central dynamic for envisioning solidarity and identity, not as a “fossil” of the past or a superficial adjunct to economic development.

▍ Beyond “Developmentalism”

The traditional narrative of developmentalism typically positions it as a theoretical paradigm that emerged from the West along its own developmental trajectory. However, its true practical origins can be traced back to the earlier practice in the Global South. Half a century before Truman’s “Point Four Program” institutionalized “development” as a formal agenda—that is, from the late 19th to the early 20th century—three key regions within the Global South (Latin America, late Qing China, and the Ottoman Empire) had already independently initiated their own processes of industrialization. These early practices shared a core feature: the emphasis on the proactive role of the state in economic transformation, whether through state-owned enterprises or state-led industrialization policies.

Thus, developmentalism was originally a product of diverse practices across the Global South. After World War II, the establishment of the Bretton Woods system and the systematization of development aid marked the West’s epistemological appropriation and reconfiguration of developmentalism. Development economics (e.g., Rostow’s take-off theory) and sociology (e.g., Parsons’ theory of social evolution) collectively lent developmentalism a Western veneer, thereby consolidating Western hegemony within the knowledge system of development. Subsequently, due to a structural deficit in knowledge production mechanisms and capacities, the Global South entered a prolonged period of “epistemic silence” in the field of development theory.

Nevertheless, the practical pursuit of autonomous development in the Global South has never ceased. Countries have consistently explored their own development paths in accordance with their unique political, social, economic, and cultural characteristics—albeit under continuous influence from external forces. The process of understanding and theorizing their own development trajectories has also persisted, yet these efforts have long been overshadowed by the dominant discourse and knowledge production capacity of Western-centric perspectives. Western academia tends to appropriate and interpret the experiences of the Global South through its own theoretical frameworks, such as the concept of the “developmental state.” Even critical discourses on developmentalism, such as Escobar’s “encountering development,” remain constrained by Western-dominated development agendas and knowledge paradigms. As a result, the Global South has been largely deprived of the ability for self-representation and dialogue within global knowledge production. Practical experiences, such as “crossing the river by feeling the stones” and “development is the absolute principle,” have struggled to be articulated effectively within dominant theoretical frameworks.

It was not until the 1990s, with the significant economic rise of the Global South, that the region regained confidence in theoretical empowerment and self-interpretation. “New developmentalism” emerged precisely as a form of theoretical self-consciousness under these circumstances. If the emergence of traditional developmentalism coincided with the initial formation of the Global South, the rise of new developmentalism is aligned with its comprehensive ascendancy. It accurately captures the transformations in the global political and economic landscape since the 1990s, redirecting the focus of the Global South from issues such as democracy and human rights under neoliberal discourse back to fundamental development concerns, including state capacity, state–society relations, and international trade and finance. In this process, China, as one of the earliest practitioners of developmentalism and a key contributor to new developmentalism, has provided a central theoretical and practical reference for reconstructing a more inclusive and pluralistic global knowledge system on development.

New developmentalism is not a monolithic theoretical system, but rather a set of ideas and policy proposals stemming from critical reflections on the practices of neoliberalism and traditional developmentalism. Ontologically, it deconstructs the linear teleology of Western modernization and affirms the legitimacy of diverse development paths. Epistemologically, it moves beyond “growth-only-ism,” emphasizing people-centered development, environmental sustainability, and the intrinsic value of socio-cultural dimensions. Thus, new developmentalism necessarily aims to integrate economic development, social transformation, and the establishment of an equitable social structure, while also opposing unequal international systems. At its core, it prioritizes “state capacity building,” advocating for an enhanced role of the state in the economy to combine the universal principles of industrialization with specific national conditions. This approach safeguards economic sovereignty in areas such as exchange rate control, capital regulation, and industrial policy making, ultimately paving a self-determined path toward modernization with universal relevance and sustainable prosperity.

The Global South and Southeast Asia Forum Photo

▍ After Neoliberalism

Today, Southeast Asian nations are witnessing the emergence of a post-neoliberal development path—one that integrates modernization with local conditions, combines state and market forces, and places social inclusion and sustainability at the core of economic transformation.

In development strategy, the relationship between the state and the market resembles a historical pendulum, swinging between state dominance and market supremacy. During the 1960s and 1970s, the predominant development model in the Global South was state-led. Inspired by the success of postwar state planning in Europe and driven by the desire for self-reliance among newly independent nations, Southeast Asian countries widely adopted strategies centered on import substitution, industrialization, tariff protection, and the expansion of state-owned enterprises. This entailed state-directed economic blueprints, state-led infrastructure development, and centralized control over key sectors. For instance, the Philippines established large state-owned enterprises to promote domestic manufacturing behind high tariff barriers. Thailand similarly implemented five-year plans and fostered enterprise development in banking, transportation, and industry.

By the late 1970s, however, the state-led model began to falter due to mounting debt, inefficiency, and stagnant productivity. The debt crisis of the early 1980s marked a sharp turn, as market fundamentalism swept across the Global South, including Southeast Asia. Under the influence or pressure of multilateral institutions, countries of the Global South adopted structural adjustment programs based on the Washington Consensus, emphasizing liberalization, deregulation, and privatization. The state was viewed as inefficient, while the market was regarded as sacrosanct. The Philippines, for example, aggressively privatized public utilities and liberalized capital flows.

The East Asian model is founded on strategic state intervention. Governments coordinate industrial upgrading, support key sectors, protect infant industries, and make substantial investments in human capital and R&D. They sequenced trade liberalization and facilitated technology transfer through national business cooperation. China adopted this model on an unprecedented scale, merging state capitalism with global integration through infrastructure development, special economic zones, state-owned leading enterprises, and expertise-driven manufacturing. Southeast Asia, too, has drawn lessons from East Asia. In a hybrid ASEAN development model that blends imitation and innovation, the region did not adopt the East Asian approach wholesale. Instead, countries crafted mixed strategies incorporating liberal economic principles with context-sensitive industrial policies, regional integration, and social investment. For example, Singapore’s Economic Development Board strategically plans future industries and implements national strategic objectives through Temasek Holdings. Thailand is systematically advancing high-tech industrialization via its “Thailand 4.0” strategy and the Eastern Economic Corridor initiative. Vietnam skillfully combines foreign direct investment with the cultivation of domestic supply chains, while Indonesia uses tools such as export bans to spur upgrading in domestic processing and enhance value addition. The Philippines, too, is updating its development plan to emphasize rebuilding domestic industrial capabilities rather than merely attracting foreign investment. Together, these efforts underscore the central role of the state in shaping the region’s economic future.

These examples reflect a new era of pragmatic thinking—one that rejects dogma and focuses on what works. In the current context, industrial policy is intersecting with a new geopolitical environment. The return of Trump to the U.S. political scene and his strong opposition to globalization signify a shift from rules-based multilateralism toward geopolitical realism. Today, Western industrial policy is couched in terms of national security and strategic realignment, while the ASEAN approach—integrating industrial policy with trade and investment strategies—is gaining emulation worldwide. Unlike the neoliberal tendency toward fragmentation, ASEAN’s approach to trade and development is more holistic.

The development experience in Southeast Asia offers several insights: First, rejecting neoliberal dogma does not mean rejecting the market. Rather, it entails using the market strategically, pursuing reforms in a phased manner, investing in state capacity, and promoting competition to curb monopolies and oligopolies. Second, these experiences highlight the central importance of state capacity—not only in regulation but also in vision setting, policy coherence, and institutional learning. Third, development is not a fixed formula but a dynamic process that requires aligning strategy with local conditions, learning from others, and continuously adapting. Fourth, development must further emphasize inclusiveness and sustainability—not only in outcomes but also in design. Looking ahead, highlighting economic autonomy and intellectual agency, fully leveraging local initiative, and prioritizing social justice, digital innovation, and ecological sustainability will constitute the new dimensions of development in the Global South.

▍South-South Cooperation in an Uncertain World

The global geopolitical and economic order is currently undergoing profound restructuring. Elements of the post-World War II global governance system face mounting challenges, creating strategic space for regional actors—particularly China and Southeast Asian nations—to broaden and deepen their cooperation. Against this complex and uncertain backdrop, countries in Southeast Asia are widely seeking to diversify their partnerships to mitigate risks, expand markets, and explore new growth opportunities. As the region’s most dynamic multilateral platform, ASEAN serves not only as a coordinator of its member states’ interests but also as an increasingly influential force in shaping the future world order.

As the world’s fourth-largest economy, ASEAN’s core competitiveness on the global stage stems from its unique founding and operational logic: it adopts geoeconomics as a core principle and a practical tool to navigate complex geopolitical realities. This approach is rooted in its establishment in 1967. At that time, the “Confrontation” between Indonesia and Malaysia led the founding members to a crucial realization: they must transcend political differences and build common interests through economic cooperation, upholding regional stability and prosperity based on the principle of “non-interference in internal affairs.”

In ASEAN Community Vision 2045, released in 2023, ASEAN reaffirmed its geoeconomic approach, identifying strengthened global value chains, the digital economy, and the green economy as core pillars for future development. Even when confronting sensitive geopolitical issues such as territorial disputes among member states, ASEAN prefers to employ geoeconomic frameworks to de-escalate and manage conflicts. ASEAN’s success demonstrates that in a region marked by extreme diversity in political systems—including four monarchies and two socialist states—and religious cultures, countries need not pursue institutional convergence. Instead, they can manage differences and achieve shared prosperity through effective cooperation mechanisms.

For China, ASEAN offers a valuable platform for engaging with multiple stakeholders. Within various regional dialogue mechanisms, ASEAN’s centrality complements China’s role as a partner, providing a balanced and efficient framework for regional cooperation. This model, often termed “Global ASEAN,” allows the bloc to transcend geographical confines and establish dialogue channels with extra-regional mechanisms such as BRICS, further expanding its global influence. Within this framework, China-ASEAN cooperation has continued to deepen, notably under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The concept of the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road” was first proposed during Chinese leaders’ visit to ASEAN in 2013. Over the past decade, Southeast Asia has become one of the regions with the most concentrated achievements in BRI cooperation. Cambodia’s experience is particularly noteworthy, offering a model for how a peripheral economy can leverage external cooperation to achieve national modernization through strategic agency and sovereign autonomy.

Traditional development theory’s “core-periphery” structure often leads peripheral economies into dependency in their interactions with core countries. However, through its engagement with the BRI, Cambodia has constructed a relationship of interdependence rather than one-way dependency by means of sophisticated institutional design and strategic planning. The Cambodian government closely aligned the BRI with its national “Pentagonal Strategy,” prioritizing infrastructure, human capital, sustainable growth, and institutional capacity building. By strategically adopting the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model and preferential financing, Cambodia utilized Chinese capital and technology while retaining ultimate asset ownership—effectively mitigating debt risks and ensuring that BRI projects serve long-term national development priorities. From 2017 to 2022, BRI-related projects contributed significantly to Cambodia’s average annual GDP growth of 6~7%; agricultural exports to China increased by 30%, with 70% of its rice exports destined for the Chinese market. Cambodia’s experience demonstrates that through mature negotiation and strategic alignment, development partnerships can achieve genuine mutual benefit—a clear contrast to the neoliberal market-driven paradigm. Cambodia’s strategic engagement with the BRI illustrates how Global South countries can navigate global economic structures and challenge neoliberal orthodoxy, offering important lessons for other nations in the region.

In the current context, where open multilateral trading orders are under strain and international rules are being eroded, small and medium-sized countries may not dominate the macro-strategic environment, but they can still carve out development space through proactive cooperation in three key areas:

First, deepen intra-regional cooperation to uphold an open economy and multilateralism. The upgraded China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) 3.0 negotiations are a prime example. The new version of the agreement covers not only traditional trade areas but also incorporates emerging issues such as the digital economy, green economy, and supply chain connectivity, injecting new momentum into regional economic integration.

Second, cooperate with other key regional partners to open new markets and diversify risks. For instance, the entry into force of the Pacific Alliance-Singapore Free Trade Agreement provides an institutional guarantee for economic connectivity between Latin America and Southeast Asia, helping member states achieve mutual benefits in goods trade, services investment, e-commerce, and other areas.

Third, explore cooperation in emerging frontier fields with major partners. The collaboration between China and Singapore in trade digitalization serves as a benchmark. Their first cross-border paperless trade initiative, along with a digital trade pilot involving China, Singapore, and the Middle East, has not only enhanced corporate efficiency and reduced transaction costs but also laid the foundation for a broader regional digital trade framework. China has contributed numerous cutting-edge innovations to advance the digital economy. At the same time, China’s cooperation with Cambodia highlights the key role of infrastructure in driving economic transformation and poverty reduction. Under the BRI and the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation framework, major projects such as the Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway, completed in 2022, have significantly improved Cambodia’s connectivity, reduced logistics costs, and stimulated economic development along the route. In addition, agricultural technical support and vocational training in rural areas have directly benefited local communities, enhancing agricultural productivity and food security. These practical measures have become key drivers of Cambodia’s development, contributing significantly to the reduction of its multidimensional poverty rate from 36.7% in 2014 to 16.6% in 2022, demonstrating the tangible outcomes of development-oriented partnerships.

Of course, any deep cooperation entails potential challenges, such as debt sustainability and environmental and social impacts. These are common issues for many Global South countries navigating complex partnerships in a rapidly changing world. What matters is how they are addressed—through improved governance, regulatory oversight, and public communication. In this context, ASEAN’s regional consultation mechanisms can help harmonize standards, mitigate risks, and establish engagement frameworks. While bilateral cooperation can yield substantial benefits, it must be reinforced by multilateral coordination. ASEAN’s role in this process is essential. By aligning regional initiatives such as the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area and the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity with Chinese platforms including the BRI and the Greater Mekong Subregion Economic Cooperation, cooperation can evolve from fragmented projects into a systematic framework.

Looking ahead, the experience of China-ASEAN cooperation has distilled several core principles for broader Global South collaboration: first, respect for developmental sovereignty, ensuring that each country retains full control over its development process; second, commitment to inclusivity, aimed at reducing regional inequality and generating local employment; and finally, ensuring sustainability, which pertains not only to the environment but also to financial and institutional resilience. In a fragmented and uncertain world, South-South cooperation built on mutual respect, shared interests, and sovereign equality offers a promising pathway toward common prosperity and sustainable development for the Global South.

— CONTENTS —

2025. Special Issue

▍Editor’s Note

Intellectual Awakening of the Global South：Opening Speech at the Global South and Southeast Asia Forum

Yang Ping

▍Conceptualizing The Global South

Knowledge Decolonization and the Autonomous Development of the Global South: Summary of the Global South and Southeast Asia Forum

Longway Foundation

Constructing Southern Theories in the Post-Neoliberal Era

Qin Beichen, Jing Jun

The Southern Problem and Beyond

Yin Zhiguang