ASEAN toes a delicate balancing act between China and the United States, and the latest ASEAN Summit demonstrates the complexities involved in steering clear of unnecessary tensions.

Indonesia famously played host to Joe Biden and Xi Jinping’s first face-to-face meeting of Biden’s presidency; a milestone in the great power rivalry between East and West. Historically, Indonesia has also been the site of another major international summit - the Bandung Conference which produced a network of “non-aligned” states. Each of these events is a mirror of our modern times as Southeast Asia’s medium-sized powers seek to navigate a contentious climate between the U.S. and China’s competing influences.

This is a highlight moment for ASEAN, with the ASEAN Summit, the G20 Summit and the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting coming soon. By hosting these events, ASEAN will be able to demonstrate to the world its strong will and capability to unite the region and provide new impetus for the post pandemic recovery.

China and ASEAN are rapidly becoming a community with a shared future of interdependence. Now at a historical starting point, they are forging new patterns to ensure that their comprehensive strategic partnership makes long-term progress.

As a former U.S. colonial subject, the Philippines has retained close cultural and official ties to Washington. The new Philippine president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., has shown that he intends to deviate from his predecessor’s distancing from the United States by rebuilding relations with the West while simultaneously drawing closer to Asian nations - including China.

The IPEF attempts to placate those who oppose free trade in the Indo-Pacific region while also constraining China. But China is the biggest trading partner for most IPEF countries, so the attempt to encircle China on trade is tantamount to encircling its own members.

Whether or not bilateral relations will enter a new era depends, in particular, on what the U.S. can offer. Peace and development is ASEAN’s main concern. A strategy designed to force members to side with the U.S. or China will not be welcomed.

At the gathering in Washington, China was the elephant in the room. While it’s too soon to say which side has the upper hand in Southeast Asia, the summit offered a glimpse of how the competition will unfold.

The $150 million packages are a good start for America’s regional vision, but what the U.S. does next will be decisive. In Southeast Asia, actions always speak louder than words.

Judging the summit from an American perspective would be misleading. Rather, it must be scrutinized from the ASEAN point of view. From that position, the summit can be seen as beneficial not only to ASEAN but to all state-to-state relations in the region.