Publication

This article explores the concept of “ASEAN centrality” and the extent to which this concept is being understood and appropriated in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’s (ASEAN) dealings with both Washington and Beijing. Over the years, Asia has featured in the policy-making discourse of the big powers, in particular in the United States and China. Paralleling the prominence of ASEAN for the big powers is the growing emphasis among its own members on “ASEAN centrality” - the notion of an ASEAN-led regional architecture in which the region’s relations with the wider world are conducted with the interest of the ASEAN community in mind.