Sujit Kumar Datta, Former Chairman of Department of International Relations, University of Chittagong, Bangladesh
Jun 06, 2025
Regional trade alliances and economic integration — especially the one emerging between China, ASEAN and countries in the Persian Gulf — are offering stability for a global economy on the edge. The world’s poles are shifting to fill the gap left by an increasingly isolationist United States.
Kishore Mahbubani, Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore
Jun 06, 2025
U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariffs – especially the ultra-high “reciprocal tariffs” that he says will be reintroduced on July 8 for any country that has not struck a trade deal with his administration – have sent countries around the world scrambling to respond, adapt, and limit the fallout. ASEAN’s ten members – Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam – have been among the most proactive.
Zhang Yun, Professor, School of International Relations, Nanjing University
May 30, 2025
After reaching a consensus in their tariff negotiations in Geneva, China and the United States have significantly reduced their duties on each other. This has awakened countries around the world and inspired them to launch a new wave of regional integration.
Warwick Powell, Adjunct Professor at Queensland University of Technology, Senior Fellow at Beijing Taihe Institute
May 30, 2025
In the week of 25th May 2025, Kuala Lumpur played host to a landmark event: the inaugural ASEAN-GCC-China Summit. It brought together Southeast Asian nations, the Gulf states, and China - three pillars of the emerging multipolar order - in a signal moment of strategic realignment. While headlines may focus on trade, energy, and infrastructure cooperation, the deeper story lies in a quiet revolution in how the world’s fastest-growing economies trade, settle, and invest - increasingly without the U.S. dollar.
Brian Wong, Assistant Professor in Philosophy and Fellow at Centre on Contemporary China and the World, HKU and Rhodes Scholar
Mar 04, 2025
Peter Hegseth’s inability to name an ASEAN country underscores the Trump administration’s broader indifference to Southeast Asia, favoring trade protectionism, military burden-shifting, and transactional diplomacy over sustained regional engagement.
Liu Chang, Assistant Research Fellow, Department for American Studies, CIIS
Apr 23, 2024
America is holding ASEAN countries back from a central role in its Indo-Pacific Strategy, but their self-confidence is growing. It’s not lost on anyone that Southeast Asia’s strategic position has not changed in the minds of U.S. decision-makers. Meanwhile, China offers welcome alternatives.
Brian Wong, Assistant Professor in Philosophy and Fellow at Centre on Contemporary China and the World, HKU and Rhodes Scholar
Apr 19, 2024
ASEAN’s future seems bright, and both the U.S. and China want to court the region’s nations into partnerships. Neither side holds a clear advantage, though that may change after the U.S. election this year.
Brian Wong, Assistant Professor in Philosophy and Fellow at Centre on Contemporary China and the World, HKU and Rhodes Scholar
Kevin Zongzhe Li, Master in Public Policy Candidate at Harvard Kennedy School, Research Assistant at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs
Nov 27, 2023
Southeast Asia is primed for major growth across multiple fronts in the near future - and it might be the perfect staging ground for U.S.-China cooperation, if the cross-Pacific powers are willing to set aside their differences.
Richard Javad Heydarian, Professorial Chairholder in Geopolitics, Polytechnic University of the Philippines
Oct 20, 2023
Indonesia is one of the world’s most populous nations, and is rising in regional and international influence. Taking charge as ASEAN chairman amid a contentious time among member states is Indonesia’s chance to prove its ability to lead Southeast Asia and the world in the coming decades.
Li Huan, Deputy Director at CICIR's Institute of Hong Kong and Macao Studies, and Distinguished Research Fellow, Xiamen University
Sep 05, 2023
If a report in the Washington Post is true, the United States is playing politics by blocking John Lee Ka-chiu’s attendance at an upcoming APEC meeting in San Francisco. This must not be allowed to become a spark that starts another prairie fire in China-U.S. relations.