ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus to be held

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus will take place today and tomorrow via videoconference. Vietnam is the nominal host.

The meeting will feature representatives from ASEAN and its eight “dialogue partners”—Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia and the US. Topics covered will include maritime security, counter-terrorism, humanitarian assistance and disaster management, peacekeeping operations and cybersecurity efforts coordinated among ASEAN actors in the region. The discussion concerning maritime security operations is of particular strategic interest, given the conference’s inclusion of US and Chinese delegates.

Expect the meeting to feature opposing interests between the US and China, as ASEAN members look to remain neutral in the two countries’ battle for regional dominance. While most of the region’s countries may ideologically favour Washington and its sphere of protection, Beijing provides a closer geopolitical presence and is a key trading partner. The US has favoured state coalitions to oppose Chinese strategic expansion, and will likely support Indonesian control of sea lanes while seeking to limit Beijing’s military exercises in the South China Sea. But with the US under the Trump administration having withdrawn from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement, and the recent signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (which excludes the US), China will portray itself as a steadier ally.

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