2017 marks a challenging year for ASEAN, the same year that ushers in 50 years since the organisation was formed.

As with any jubilee celebration, the association’s 10 countries share many significant milestones and recent achievements worth saluting, particularly in the area of security cooperation.

For the Asia Pacific, a region where unresolved territorial disputes – which do not seem likely to be settled any time soon – are potential hotspots for conflict, making diplomatic progress on key agreed principles that undergird countries’ approach to a dispute is the best way to keep all parties engaged in finding a meaningful resolution.

So it is a relief to see significant effort to make progress in the South China Sea culminate in the promulgation of the Framework on the Code of Conduct between ASEAN and China early last month in Manila.

… Henrick Z Tsjeng and Collin Koh are researchers at the Institute for Defence and Strategic Studies, a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies based in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.