According to media reports such as the Singapore-based Lianhe Zaobao, the 46th ASEAN Summit concluded in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia, on May 27 local time. Malaysian Prime Minister Anwa announced that East Timor will become an official member of ASEAN in October this year.

In a press conference on the same day, Anwa introduced that East Timor will officially become the 11th member state at the ASEAN Summit in October. He pointed out that East Timor still needs to complete one or two conditions in the economic field in order to smoothly become a formal member.

East Timorese Prime Minister Xuanana said locally on May 26 that he is optimistic about the progress of joining the alliance, "We hope to join before the end of the year, possibly in October, because everyone supports it. We will do our utmost to complete most of the necessary conditions, and there are still one or two conditions left to be met, which we will strive to achieve."

A photo taken on May 26, 2025 shows Anwa (right) and Xuanana posing for a group photo before the plenary session of the ASEAN Summit. Visual China

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), founded in 1967, currently has 10 official members including Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar. If East Timor successfully joins, the scale of ASEAN's official membership will expand for the first time since 1999.

In 2005, East Timor obtained observer status in ASEAN shortly after independence and became a member of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) the same year. In 2011, then President Raulas Mosa Orta formally applied for membership in ASEAN.

In 2019, the Foreign Minister of East Timor actively lobbied the ten ASEAN countries to seek membership opportunities, but did not gain unanimous recognition from ASEAN countries. The main reason was that ASEAN countries had disputes over whether East Timor possessed the "ability and obligations to fulfill the responsibilities of a member state." At that time, East Timor was recognized by the United Nations as a "least developed country" and also found it difficult to achieve the goal of becoming a middle-income country by 2030, making its application difficult to pass.

On November 11, 2022, at the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summits held in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, ASEAN issued a statement regarding East Timor's application to join ASEAN, agreeing in principle to admit East Timor as a member state. It allowed East Timor to attend all ASEAN meetings, including the summit, after the conclusion of this session. The statement said that ASEAN would help East Timor formulate a roadmap to become a formal member state, and all ASEAN member states should provide necessary support for East Timor to become a formal member state.

Geographical location of East Timor

According to information on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, East Timor is located at the easternmost tip of the Nusa Tenggara Islands in Southeast Asia, with an area of 15,007 square kilometers and a population of 1.34 million (in 2024), of which 78% are indigenous people (mixed race of Papuan and Malay or Polynesian races), 20% are Indonesians, and 2% are Chinese. The country has long been under Portuguese colonial rule in its history. On August 30, 1975, the people of East Timor voted in a referendum to separate from Indonesia and gain independence, and on May 20, 2002, the Democratic Republic of East Timor was officially established.

East Timor's economic development level is backward, structurally unbalanced, and heavily dependent on oil and gas income and foreign aid. The non-oil and gas economy mainly consists of traditional services and agriculture. In recent years, the government of East Timor has made poverty reduction and job creation the focus of governance, gradually increasing fiscal budgets, expanding public spending, and encouraging foreign investment to drive the growth of the non-oil and gas economy.

The country's main mineral resources include gold, manganese, chromium, tin, copper, etc. The Timor Sea is rich in oil and gas resources, with 44 oil fields discovered so far. The proven oil reserves are approximately 3 billion barrels, and the natural gas reserves are approximately 7 trillion cubic meters. A petroleum fund was established in July 2005. By the end of 2022, the cumulative balance of East Timor's petroleum fund reached $17.41 billion.

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