Article

Inclusive Power? Institutional “Double Alienation” in China-ASEAN Digital Governance and the Dilemma of ASEAN Centrality

By: Rui Fu^*

Hubei Academy of Social Sciences, Wuhan, China.

^*Corresponding author

Received: 2025-12-10Revised: 2026-06-01Accepted: 2026-06-16Published: 2026-10-10

J. Int. Eco. Glo. Gov. 2026, 3(3), 4-23; https://doi.org/10.58244/jiegg.253449

Abstract

This article develops a framework of institutional double alienation to examine how great-power strategic competition in the age of artificial intelligence reshapes the functions of regional institutions. Taking China-ASEAN digital governance as the empirical field, it argues that great powers may transform regional institutions through a strategy of systemic embedding rather than through direct institutional confrontation. Two mechanisms are identified. First, cooperation networks that are designed to facilitate collective action may be alienated into structural barriers that separate technological alliances by raising the costs of alternative integration. Second, governance discourse that is expected to generate normative consensus may be alienated into a field of competing rules that deepens internal cognitive and regulatory fragmentation. In the China-ASEAN case, China’s engagement with ASEAN-led mechanisms lowers the political and institutional transaction costs of cooperation with China, while its parallel initiatives, infrastructure supply, and standards-oriented practices generate deeper forms of rule dependence and strategic uncertainty for ASEAN members. The result is a paradox of inclusion: ASEAN is formally recognized and institutionally engaged, yet its capacity to act as an autonomous institutional center is weakened. The article contributes to debates on global AI governance, regime complexity, digital trade rules, network power, and ASEAN centrality by showing how seemingly inclusive institutional arrangements can produce non-neutral political effects in high-technology governance. It also advances a critical extension of neoliberal institutionalism by demonstrating that institutions in digital governance are not merely platforms for cooperation, but political carriers through which actors compete for meta-governance authority and the future design of regional order.

Keywords: Artificial intelligence; Double alienation; Institutional competition; Global governance; Digital governance; ASEAN centrality

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Funding

This research received no external funding.

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