Energy dependence is a strategic vulnerability: East Asia must finally wake up, especially ASEAN

East Asia’s economic miracle has long been powered by a fragile assumption: that energy from West Asia will always flow uninterrupted. That assumption is now dangerously obsolete.

With approximately 84 per cent of crude oil and 83 per cent of liquefied natural gas (LNG) imported from West Asia, East Asia—especially Asean—stands exposed to one of the most persistent and predictable vulnerabilities in modern geopolitics.

While the Philippines is the Chair of Asean and Related Summits this year, by the first quarter of 2026, President Ferdinand Marcos Junior has had to call for a national emergency due to the energy and oil crisis.

The lesson of the oil or energy crisis is not new. It has simply been ignored for too long.

History has issued repeated warnings.

The oil crisis of 1973 demonstrated how quickly supply disruptions could cripple industrial economies.

Triggered by geopolitical retaliation, oil embargoes sent shockwaves through global markets, forcing countries like Japan to fundamentally rethink their energy strategies.

Yet Asean, still in its developmental infancy then, absorbed the lesson only partially.

The second oil crisis of 1979, following the Iranian Revolution, reinforced the same message: political instability in West Asia translates directly into economic instability in East Asia.

Prices surged again, inflation spiked, and energy security became synonymous with national security. But even then, diversification remained more rhetorical than real across much of Southeast Asia.