Leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, member states are meeting today in Laos for the organization’s annual summit. Today’s meetings will be followed by two days of talks with representatives from “dialogue partners,” including U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Chinese Premier Li Qiang. (AP)
Our Take
As far as major regional blocs go, ASEAN might be the least well-known by the general public, a low profile that belies its importance in global affairs. That is in part because, although it was created nearly 60 years ago, the bloc didn’t rise to prominence until relatively recently.
In the mid-to-late 2000s, Southeast Asia’s rapidly growing role in globalized supply chains and the attractiveness of its economic integration under ASEAN suddenly made the region a central node in the global economy. At the same time, the grouping began to institutionalize its dialogue mechanisms with outside partners, in an effort to operationalize what it called “ASEAN centrality” to regional affairs. That made ASEAN summits an important stop for Western leaders on diplomatic tours, with the U.S. in particular making relations with ASEAN a priority during the Obama administration.