ASEAN's central role in power competition between China and the US in Southeast Asia

Abstract

The role of ASEAN has always been an issue of interest to policy makers and researchers in the region. Unlike some studies that underestimate the role of ASEAN in regional issues, this paper strives to examine the role of the ASEAN factor with a focus on the central role and overall policy of ASEAN in maintaining the power balance in Southeast Asia in particular and the Asia-Pacific region in general. With the view that ASEAN is a unified multilateral institution that sustains the power balance in Southeast Asia in the context of China's increasingly assertive foreign policy, the paper attempts to implement these research issues: (1) exploring various concepts of power and power evaluation ranking indices; (2) studying the power between China and the US in the Asia-Pacific region and the central role of ASEAN - the region's power triangle; (3) highlighting ASEAN's central role in the Regional Security Forum (ARF) and ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMM+); and (4) clarifying and emphasizing the central role of ASEAN. In terms of research methods, the paper synthesizes and analyzes the data from the reports on regional security issues in ASEAN as well as applies the theory of power balance in Southeast Asia.