"In their 50th year, we need to look back on the ongoing Japan-ASEAN relations; how far we have progressed, which aspects we should improve, and how we perceive this relation in the future," Head of BRIN's Research Center for Area Studies Fadjar Ibnu Thufail said here on Friday.
BRIN will conduct an international symposium next week to discuss the role of mobility in encouraging ASEAN-Japan collaboration, he informed.
"By researching its development or, specifically, its mobility, we can see Indonesia's strategic role at the regional level or the greater scope," he said.
While Indonesia has conducted several studies about ASEAN since the organization's establishment, the study on Japan commenced only in 2001, Thufail informed.
He said that most studies conducted by Indonesia cover only a specific aspect, such as disaster research performed by Indonesia and Japan, instead of a more general scope.
The situation is the same in political research, which, for instance, covers specifically the ASEAN institution or Indonesian workers in Japan, he added.
"We hope to be able to synergize existing researches, including those on ASEAN-Japan relations," the researcher said.
According to Thufail, the social and cultural dimensions of ASEAN-Japan relations have become more important as the ASEAN approach has shifted to become more centered and orientated to the people.
He said that the purposes of the ASEAN-Japan mobility research include understanding the effects of global movement and ASEAN-Japan connectivity, identifying human movement patterns, global system effects, and changes that have occurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Translator: Sugiharto P, Nabil Ihsan
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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