DILI, East Timor – Three decades ago, he was a scrappy campaigner roaming the world’s corridors of power with a dream to win independence for his tiny homeland. Today, at 75, Mr Jose Ramos-Horta is both the president and a relentless salesman for East Timor.

He asked China’s president, Mr Xi Jinping, to “help us resolve the problem of agriculture, food security and poverty.” He pleaded with Vietnam’s leaders to do the same. He pitched Mr Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the ruler of the United Arab Emirates, his dream of building student dormitories.

Mr Ramos-Horta is under mounting pressure to sustain his nation – Asia’s youngest and one of its poorest. Home to about 1.4 million people, East Timor is one half of an island that lies near the northern tip of Australia; the other half is part of Indonesia. A Portuguese colony for centuries, it emerged as an independent state in 2002 after a brutal occupation by Indonesia. Its roughly US$2 billion (S$2.67 billion) economy remains heavily reliant on oil and gas revenue, which is evaporating quickly, and more than 40 per cent of its people are estimated to live in poverty.

“No country in Southeast Asia or in Africa began as we did, from ashes, from total destruction,” Mr Ramos-Horta said. But, he added: “In 22 years, we should have resolved child poverty, child malnutrition, mother malnutrition and extreme poverty. So that has been a failure.”

Still, by other measures, East Timor, or Timor-Leste as it is known in Portuguese, is a success. It has strengthened its young democracy, holding competitive elections with multiple transfers of power. It ranks among the highest in Asia for press freedom. Life expectancy is around 70, up from around 64 in 2002. The entire population now has access to electricity.

While politically motivated violence followed independence, including an assassination attempt on Mr Ramos-Horta in 2008, during his first term as president, the country is stable now.

East Timor is a positive case study for young post-conflict states, said Mr Parker Novak, an Indo-Pacific expert at the Atlantic Council. “They’ve built a fairly resilient democracy. That’s something they’re very proud of, and rightfully so.”

In September 2024, a visit by Pope Francis briefly put East Timor in the global spotlight. Abo...