‘Really dumb and lazy if we do not benefit’: Timor-Leste president on hopes of joining ASEAN in 2025

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‘Really dumb and lazy if we do not benefit’: Timor-Leste president on hopes of joining ASEAN in 2025
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Asia’s youngest country has been waiting to be a member of ASEAN since 2011. The benefits of membership won’t be one-sided, Timor-Leste President José Ramos-Horta tells CNA in an exclusive interview.

Hassanal Bolkiah, Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto and Singapore’s Prime Minister Lawrence Wong adorn a newly inaugurated hall in Timor-Leste ’s presidential palace in the capital Dili.

“At least in ASEAN countries I have visited, I have never noticed something like the ASEAN Hall,” he said in an exclusive interview with CNA a day after inaugurating the space.In a wide-ranging conversation, the 75-year-old leader and winner of theexpressed hopes of joining the regional grouping this year during Malaysia’s chairmanship and shared how he expects incoming United States president Donald Trump to reset relations with China, reiterating that Beijing is not a threat.

Timor-Leste has made progress in its quest for ASEAN membership, President José Ramos-Horta tells CNA's Kiki Siregar. Timor-Leste – which occupies half the island of Timor, with Indonesia occupying the other half – had hoped to become a member in 2023 under the chairmanship of Indonesia. According to him, some ASEAN leaders have told him not every ASEAN country can claim accurately that it has implemented all milestones.

He is grateful to have Australia and Indonesia as its closest neighbours, as well as Singapore and Malaysia, which are relatively near. Current Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto was with the Indonesian army during the occupation and was deployed several times to Timor-Leste. In fact, Timor-Leste has a variety of banana called Banana Singapura or “hudi Singapura” in its national language Tetum.

“The best contribution we can offer ASEAN is precisely that Timor-Leste is not a nuisance. Timor-Leste is not unstable, not a failed country.A statue of Francisco Xavier do Amaral, Timor-Leste's first president when it declared independence from Portugal in 1975. Across the ASEAN Hall at the entrance of the Nicolau Lobato presidential palace is the Noble People’s Republic of China Hall with a pair of tall Chinese porcelain vases on its left side.

According to the International Monetary Fund, Timor-Leste’s 2024 public external debt is about US$267 million, about 13.7 per cent of its non-oil GDP.“I can tell you countries in ASEAN, they don't feel that they are threatened by China,” he said., but when you have differences, you negotiate. We engage in dialogue, in bilateral dialogue.”

Timorese wave as Pope Francis boards a plane to Singapore from Dili in September 2024. The country is predominantly Catholic. With the US set to inaugurate Donald Trump as president for a second time, Ramos-Horta hopes for a reset of US-China relations and the superpower's continued engagement with ASEAN.

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