ASEAN and Strategic Rivalry among the Great Powers in Asia

This paper looks at ASEAN's role in the context of the three main bilateral relations among the great powers in Asia: China-US, China-Japan, and China-India. The authors argue that although ASEAN's influence is limited in terms of geographical reach and its impact on actual security issues, Southeast Asia is potentially an important object of great power rivalry and thus the sub-region is highly relevant to Asian geopolitics. In the future the most important contribution that the Southeast Asian countries can make to stability in Asia, apart from working on stability domestically and within their own sub-region, is by finding ways to deal with China's rise without encouraging new frictions between China and other great powers.