Breaking the dollar’s grip? National monetary security, ASEAN-China interactions and the rise of pluralistic monetary regionalism in East Asia

This study examines Southeast Asia’s recent de-dollarization drives through the lens of national monetary security. It contends that member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are expanding their monetary options to address systemic risks inherent to dollar hegemony, including limited monetary autonomy, vulnerability to unilateral financial sanctions, and overreliance on foreign monetary authorities. Regional de-dollarization efforts unfold along three dimensions: cross-border local currency settlement, domestic currency promotion, and diversified payment and liquidity arrangements. Drawing on regional frameworks and country-level evidence from Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar and Singapore, this study finds that shared anxieties over dollar dependency have translated into disparate remedial approaches across ASEAN states. China’s involvement further broadens the spectrum of viable non-dollar instruments. Collectively, these trends foster a pluralistic form of monetary regionalism across East Asia. This layered order retains the dollar as the foundational structural anchor, while granting greater operational weight to local currencies, the renminbi, regional financial safety nets, and interoperable cross-border payment systems.