With the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) losing much of its diplomatic momentum, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is gradually regaining its center in the Indo-Pacific.
The clearest evidence emerged this week as Manila hosted the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting along with the ASEAN Regional Forum, the East Asia Summit, ASEAN Plus Three and the ASEAN-Plus Defense Ministers’ Meeting, showcasing ASEAN as the region’s diplomatic nerve centre.
Over the course of three days, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar, European Union High Representative Kaja Kallas and their counterparts from Japan, Australia, South Korea, Canada and 11 Southeast Asian countries at every virtual SEAN link The geopolitical fault line, from the South China Sea to Strait of Hormuz.
At the end of three days, as Asia’s strategic landscape became increasingly fragmented, the foreign ministers of the Quad ADOPTED ASEAN’s Perspective on the Indo-Pacific – and Manila demonstrated an enduring truth: When serious diplomacy matters, the region still turns to ASEAN.
Return to the center
For most of the last decade, ASEAN’s highly praised center seemed to be diminishing. The increased expansion of the Quad, AUKUS and BRICS had encouraged predictions that ASEAN was leaning towards Chinaand that its consensus-driven diplomacy—often derided as “progress like no progress” — was too cautious and slow, making Quad take charge. Yet the meetings in Manila revealed just the opposite.
ASEAN’s strength was never based on military might. Its influence derives from its unrivaled convening authority. Home for him 705.2 million people and a combined economy of 4.51 trillion dollarsASEAN is located at the strategic maritime crossroads connecting the Pacific and Indian Oceans. It remains the institutional center around which most regional dialogue partnerships continue to revolve.
No other regional institution routinely brings together the United States, China, Russia, India, Japan, Australia, South Korea, the European Union and 11 Southeast Asian countries under one diplomatic roof.
That institutional legitimacy, painstakingly cultivated over the nearly six decades since ASEAN’s founding in 1967, remains its greatest strategic asset, keeping ASEAN at the forefront of the regional security architecture.
Where rivals still meet
Indeed, Manila agenda reflected a changing Asian security architecture. Predictably, the South China Sea dominated the discussions, as ongoing confrontations between China and the Philippines reinforced ASEAN’s long-standing demand for an effective and substantive Code of Conduct.
Equally pressing were concerns about tensions across the country Taiwan Strait following recent Chinese military activity, alongside ongoing instability in Myanmar, where ASEAN The Five-Point Consensus Framework continues to face serious obstacles.
However, what set Manila apart from previous ministerial meetings was its geographic scope. of disruption of global transport through the Strait of Hormuz after the US-Iran war reminded economies heavily dependent on Gulf energy imports that instability in West Asia has become inseparable from Indo-Pacific security. As a result, ASEAN’s agenda extended from the western Indian Ocean to the western Pacific.
Economic security featured equally prominently. Ministers discussed resilient supply chains, semiconductor collaboration, cyber security, digital connectivity and artificial intelligence governance – issues once considered purely economic but now recognized as central to strategic planning. ASEAN’s agenda has expanded from traditional territorial disputes to include technology, energy, maritime trade and critical infrastructure.
Perhaps the most closely watched engagement happened on the sidelines, where Rubio and Wang met midway through the stretch strategic competition between Washington and Beijing. Although fundamental disagreements remained, the symbolism was unmistakable.
Even the world’s two main strategic competitors continue to rely on meetings organized by ASEAN to stabilize communication and are said to have used the occasion to advance preparations for the upcoming Trump-Xi summit. Few institutions today possess that degree of diplomatic credibility.
Beyond the Square
The Manila meetings also highlighted an important distinction between strategic coalitions and diplomatic institutions. Meetings of the second level of four continue to foster cooperation on maritime security, critical technologies and resilient supply chains across the Indo-Pacific. Back-to-back meetings of the Quad foreign ministers have strengthened coordination ranging from undersea cables to vaccine partnerships and emerging technologies.
But unlike the Quad, ASEAN imposes neither ideological tests nor strategic exclusivity. Unlike AUKUS, it is not a security alliance and unlike BRICS, it is not organized around revisionist ambitions. Its comparative advantage lies in it inclusion. Democracies and one-party states, treaty allies and strategic rivals, established powers and smaller states – all find diplomatic space within ASEAN-led forums.
Far from being displaced by newer institutions, ASEAN increasingly complements them, providing the only truly inclusive forum where competing strategic visions of Asia can still be debated at the same negotiating table.
If Manila reaffirmed the strength of the ASEAN gathering, it also allowed participants to recalibrate their bilateral relations. India’s Minister of External Affairs S. Jaishankar represented India in various multilateral sessions and also held a number of bilateral meetings with America’s Rubio, China’s Wang and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Those meetings showed why New Delhi has repeatedly dealt the ASEAN center as a key principle and under trust. For India, ASEAN is not just the geographical gateway to its Act East policy; New Delhi sees the ASEAN-centric architecture as allowing competing powers to remain engaged without forcing smaller states to choose sides.
Jaishankar’s discussions ranged from India-US cooperation in critical and emerging defense technologies, to managing the gradual stabilization of India-China relations, to supporting India’s long-term strategic partnership with Russia. Given India’s inability to host a Quad summit, its talks under the ASEAN umbrella were indicative of things to come.
Visualization of the center
The Manila meetings also exposed ASEAN enduring paradox: It remains institutionally necessary, but politically limited.
Myanmar continues to test ASEAN reliability. The long-negotiated South China Sea Code of Conduct remains unfinished. Consensus decision-making often produces cautious communiqués, and ASEAN lacks enforcement capabilities or enforcement mechanisms.
ASEAN, however, was never created to impose solutions on the great powers. Its enduring success lies in ensuring that strategic rivals keep talking even when deals remain elusive. In an era defined by geopolitical fragmentation, technological competition and overlapping security coalitions, ASEAN’s sustained dialogue is itself a strategic public good.
This is precisely why repeated predictions of ASEAN’s decline have repeatedly proven premature. The Quad will remain an influential minilateral grouping, AUKUS will deepen defense cooperation, and BRICS will continue to expand its reach. None, however, currently combine the inclusiveness, legitimacy and convening power of ASEAN.
ASEAN’s focus derives not from commanding Asia’s strategic order, but from facilitating Asia’s diplomatic communication. In a region increasingly divided by rivalry but bound together by economic interdependence, ASEAN remains the only institution capable of bringing together all key actors without seeking ideological conformity or strategic alignment.
The way forward
The irony of 21st century Indo-Pacific geopolitics is therefore striking. ASEAN is no longer the strategic center of the region in the traditional sense. Military balances and technological competition are shaped elsewhere. New security coalitions continue to emerge.
However, whenever tensions escalate – be it in the South China Sea, across the Taiwan Strait, in Myanmar or even in the Strait of Hormuz – Asia’s main stakeholders still turn to ASEAN.
Manila therefore marked more than just another annual event. He pointed out that while Asia’s balance of power may be shifting, its balance of diplomacy still revolves around ASEAN. For an organization often described as slow, disjointed and procedurally burdened, this is no small feat.
Indeed, in a fractious geopolitical era, ASEAN’s ability to bring every major power to the same table may prove to be the most important form of leadership that Asia holds.
