The Association of South-East Asian Nations was a ten-country bloc until October 26th 2025, when it admitted Timor-Leste as its 11th member state—the first new one since 1999—at a summit in Malaysia. It holds a twice-annual summit. Its approach is consensus-based incrementalism.
A common criticism is that ASEAN's positions are reduced to the views of the most timid or stubborn member, but increasingly the bloc coalesces around the median stance of its members. Landlocked Laos, in thrall to China, seeks to get the group to blame "outside powers" (ie, America) for regional tensions; such requests are routinely rejected. On the South China Sea, ASEAN criticises aggression without naming China as the aggressor, but the culprit's identity is no mystery.
ASEAN's principle of "non-interference" holds that member countries will not get involved in each other's domestic affairs. In practice the principle has evolved. After Myanmar's army seized power in 2021 and began massacring civilian protesters, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore were outspoken in objecting to the coup. They helped persuade fellow members to ban the junta chief, General Min Aung Hlaing, from the group's summits and called firmly for an end to the violence. Myanmar's lower-ranking officials still attend some meetings and the junta has not been formally suspended, but it can no longer veto decisions and its views carry little weight.
ASEAN is an unrivalled convener in Asia of bigger powers. America, China, India and Russia all send top leaders to the annual East Asia Summit, hosted by whichever country holds ASEAN's rotating chair. ASEAN shapes the summit agenda and the language used to address regional problems. American presidents have rarely attended the summits: Joe Biden skipped all but one during his tenure, and Donald Trump attended only one during his first term. In October 2025, Trump left Malaysia on the morning of the East Asia Summit, taking both his secretary of state and top Asia adviser, leaving a lower-level official to represent America alongside presidents and prime ministers. A study published by the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore found that nine out of ten South-East Asian countries have become more "aligned" with China in recent years. China's influence stems primarily from its economic ties with the region, backed by consistent diplomacy, according to the Lowy Institute; America is "a more peripheral presence", particularly for countries closest to China's borders.
Donald Trump's tariffs range from 10% for Singapore to 40% for Myanmar and Laos. A 40% levy on goods "trans-shipped" to America could snag the region's supply chains, which are deeply entwined with China's. ASEAN downgraded its annual growth forecast for 2025 to 4.2%, from 4.8% the previous year.
South-East Asia is one of the world's most trade-dependent regions, but intra-regional trade is low. Little over a fifth of South-East Asian exports are shipped within the region, a figure that has decreased over the past decade and remains well below the European Union (60%) and North America (29%). Intra-regional trade has been hindered by non-tariff barriers, infrastructure gaps and lack of political will.
In the first eight months of 2025, China exported $435bn-worth of goods to ASEAN countries—around 20% of all its exports—up from 13% in 2019. The flood has shifted from intermediate inputs feeding ASEAN's export industries to finished consumer goods, crushing local manufacturers. Between 2015 and 2024, around a fifth of all new project investment in South-East Asia came from China, up from 13% in the decade to 2017, according to the Lowy Institute. Few governments want to risk a trade confrontation with their biggest supplier and financier.
Indonesia has launched anti-dumping investigations against Chinese products and tightened import rules. But less than 7% of Chinese exports that received subsidies at home faced defensive measures in other South-East Asian countries, according to IMD Business School.
ASEAN set up a free-trade area in the late 1990s but has done little to dismantle the non-tariff barriers that undermine it. Vietnam has been a fairly passive member of the group, but To Lam, its new leader, may try to liberalise it as part of a broader effort to reduce reliance on America and China.
At the October 2025 East Asia Summit in Kuala Lumpur, China planned to sign an upgrade to its free-trade agreement with ASEAN easing the sale of digital services and climate technology.
Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam signed vague agreements with Trump focused on critical minerals, which China dominates and has weaponised in the trade war with America.
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), signed in 2020, links ASEAN to big economies including China, Japan and Australia, and is the biggest free-trade deal in the world by GDP. It remains a fledgling initiative, modest in ambition and scope, but its attractiveness is growing: in October 2025 Bangladesh, Chile, Hong Kong and Sri Lanka expressed interest in joining. China is the biggest proponent of a stronger RCEP.
Six of the nine leaders attending the May 2025 Kuala Lumpur summit are the children of former leaders who once made deals over golf. A crucial but rarely acknowledged corps of regional diplomats keeps the organisation running and deepens familiarity among neighbours who once had remarkably little to do with each other.
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