Progress and peril: ASEAN in a post-normal world

At the dawn of the information technology revolution, there was hope — boundless, borderless hope. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the rise of globalization, people believed that IT would democratize access to information, education, and opportunity. It was during this moment of tectonic change that Anwar Ibrahim spoke and wrote of an “Asian Renaissance” — envisioning a future in which the civilizational strengths of Asia could converge with modern science and technology, allowing the Global South to rise alongside the advanced economies of Japan, South Korea, and eventually China.

The exponential acceleration of chip processing power, as predicted by Gordon Moore’s Law, gave the impression of unstoppable progress. From artificial intelligence to the app economy, the promises of the digital age proliferated — wrapped in the lexicon of the “6As”: AI, Automation, Apps, Algorithm, Augmented Reality, and Big Data Analysis.

These were the pluses of a world transformed by technology. The 6As offered productivity, efficiency, connectivity, and a form of decentralization that allowed small businesses, emerging markets, and even individuals to disrupt old hierarchies of knowledge and power. For a time, it seemed that humanity had finally found the tools to level the playing field.

But beneath this gleam of progress lies the peril — a darker digital substructure rife with exploitation. As the late Polish sociologist Zygmunt Bauman warned, “Desire desires desires.” The information age, when left unmoored from ethics, has mutated into an age of manipulation. These are the minuses of the Post-Normal World — deception at scale, governance voids, and the global commodification of trust and truth.

We now live in a Post-Normal World — a term capturing the messy complexity of today’s interconnected crises, or what some have termed polycrisis. It is a world where truth competes with deepfakes, where unregulated tech creates algorithmic echo chambers, and where artificial intelligence is both a tool of emancipation and a weapon of deception. Technology has not failed. Humanity has failed to govern it.

The scam centres operating along the borders of Cambodia and Myanmar — especially in towns like Poi Pet and Myawaddy — prey on workers from Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, and increasingly from Africa and Eastern Europe. These hubs are built on the very same networks that were meant to create global efficiencies. Cybercrime syndicates lure victims with false job ads, often promising lucrative IT or call centre work. Upon arrival, many are enslaved — their passports confiscated, their communications cut off, and their lives commodified in a grey zone between human trafficking and cyber fraud.

What makes this even more disturbing is that these operations are no longer fringe. They are industrial. They thrive not only on state neglect but, in some cases, state complicity. Investigations have found overlaps between these scam syndicates and local political patronage networks. Where governance is weak and corruption is systemic, scamdemics become the new pandemic.

This is not just a problem for Cambodia or Myanmar. It is a regional emergency. ASEAN, as a regional bloc, must confront the dangerous nexus between digital disorder and human exploitation. There are worrying signs that similar operations are proliferating in parts of Laos and beyond. If ASEAN does not act — collectively and consistently — it risks allowing the digital space to become a domain of impunity.

Yet ASEAN’s founding principles were never designed to confront this scale of hybrid crime. Non-interference, while politically convenient, is becoming morally insufficient. A redefinition of “sovereignty” is required — one that protects people, not just regimes.

The broader implications are geopolitical. Scamdemics are enabled by the same technologies that power surveillance states, disinformation campaigns, and covert geopolitical warfare. The lines between criminality and strategy are increasingly blurred. These cybercriminal ecosystems are not just economic parasites; they are geopolitical infections, weakening trust in digital commerce, regional cooperation, and social cohesion.

Furthermore, scamdemics intersect with global civilizational decay. As the world turns increasingly transactional — from Washington to Tel Aviv, from Silicon Valley to Shenzhen — ethics are eroded. When human beings are reduced to data points or profit margins, the path from digital fraud to systemic violence becomes dangerously short.

In Gaza, where digital surveillance is weaponized against civilians, the world’s moral compass seems broken. In Georgetown, Washington DC, where policymaking is captured by special interests, moral leadership has eroded. The same ethical decay that enables drone warfare without accountability also allows cyber enslavement in Southeast Asia to persist under the radar.

What can be done?

First, we need a framework of digital nomocracy — a democracy rooted in ethical norms and values that guide technological innovation and application. Governments must embed ethics into their regulatory architecture, not as an afterthought, but as a core design.

Second, institutions like the proposed Institute of International Future Studies (IIFS) — to be located at the World Dialogue Academy in ISTAC, Kuala Lumpur — must begin mapping and forecasting the ethical consequences of technological trends. The IIFS can serve as ASEAN’s strategic foresight hub, combining civilizational values from Islam, Confucianism, Buddhism, and others to shape a humane digital order.

Third, ASEAN needs a Regional Pact on Digital Justice, underpinned by Track 1.5 diplomacy. This pact must criminalize scam syndicates, strengthen cross-border investigations, and protect whistleblowers and victims. The ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA) cannot succeed unless undergirded by trust, fairness, and robust enforcement.

Finally, civil society must be empowered to scrutinize, report, and resist the rise of digital exploiters. Journalism, academia, and faith-based organizations have a crucial role in sustaining the moral architecture of our societies.

The rooftop escape in Poi Pet is not just a symptom of poverty — it is a signal of systemic rot. Scamdemics, like pandemics, will not respect borders. In this Post-Normal World, where progress is neither linear nor ethical by default, the duty of governments and regional bodies is to ensure that the digital future does not become a dystopia.

As ASEAN turns 58 this year, let us not forget that its motto — "One Vision, One Identity, One Community" — will mean little if the most vulnerable in our region are abandoned in the name of sovereignty or sacrificed in the pursuit of economic gain.

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Phar Kim Beng, PhD, is Director of the Institute of Internationalization and ASEAN Studies (IINTAS) and a former Head Teaching Fellow at Harvard University.