Divergence and competition between the two major players has intensified as both economies and their business communities want to seize the initiative in developing a more profound and mutually beneficial economic relationship with ASEAN. But there is still room for win-win-win results in this tri-cornered interaction.

With its thriving economy, accelerating integration and evolving challenges to the security environment, ASEAN is destined to become an increasingly important region of the world. Its population is bigger than the combined population of the U.S. and Japan, and it represents a major frontier market.

For Southeast and East Asia to have a favorable architecture, wherein all nations could aspire to common development and prosperity, it is necessary for both the U.S. and China to work closely with each other and with ASEAN.

Washington’s move to politicize this meeting simply reflects the growing frustration of a US that doesn’t know how to deal with China. This time it has taken a wrong approach to confront China at the wrong occasion. The result was not helpful in improving relations among the countries concerned.

Since the first China-Asean official dialogue in July 1991, when then foreign minister Qian Qichen attended the 24th Asean Post-Ministerial Conference as a consultative partner, the relationship between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations has grown into a multilayered web of ties.

Beyond search-and-rescue cooperation and crisis management, creating hotlines between China and the 10 ASEAN countries would carry a no less important symbolism: the consensus that the South China Sea issue is not an issue between them as a whole.

In its eagerness to reassert its supremacy in the Asia Pacific, Washington risks losing its balance amid competing strategic goals, by forcing a position that is neither fair nor legally supportable in a region far from its shores.

The maritime issue casts a dark shadow on the cooperation between the two countries in the wake of tenser contests in the South China Sea. It is time to prevent this difference from dominating the bilateral relationship.

The Philippines is seeing a year of impressive economic growth (at 6.3%) despite the lacking foreign direct investment due to woeful infrastructure constraints. The AIIB can be an additional source of funding for local infrastructure projects. Political disputes surrounding the China Sea disputes were not enough to trump the economic importance of this cooperation.

China’s growing involvement in Sri Lanka and South Asia, drew Prime Minister Narendha Modi to visit Sri Lanka, the first for an Indian PM in 27 years. India’s utmost concern is security with China’s so-called “string of pearls” strategy, which though coined by a U.S. defense contractor, suspects China of building naval bases in the Indian Ocean. To ease tension, the two countries must accommodate each other’s maritime interests.