In a commentary, Tsjeng Zhizhao Henrick and Shawn Ho, Associate Research Fellows from RSIS, said that the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic has exposed deep ideological divisions and geopolitical rivalries, especially between the US and China. They added that ASEAN once again risks getting caught in between the two contentious major powers. ASEAN’s role in balancing such rivalries and managing regional cooperation is yet again being tested.

*Henrick Z. Tsjeng and Shawn Ho are Associate Research Fellows with the Regional Security Architecture Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. This is part of an RSIS series.