Southeast Asian countries stress the importance of regional peace as well as the bloc maintaining neutrality in the face of increasingly tense relations between the United States and China, analysts said. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations has emphasized “ASEAN centrality” – advancing and implementing policies that are based on regional interest – at its 34th regional summit.

Collin Koh Swee Lean, Research Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies , said: “The evolving and evidently worsening Sino-US tensions could create an awkward situation for ASEAN countries that have long sought to maintain this precarious balance of keeping close economic linkages with China while trying to lock in continued US security commitment and investments in the region.”