With its thriving economy, accelerating integration and evolving challenges to the security environment, ASEAN is destined to become an increasingly important region of the world. Its population is bigger than the combined population of the U.S. and Japan, and it represents a major frontier market.

For Southeast and East Asia to have a favorable architecture, wherein all nations could aspire to common development and prosperity, it is necessary for both the U.S. and China to work closely with each other and with ASEAN.

ASEAN should not be divided by TPP, and two competing economic blocs should be avoided. China and the US must understand ASEAN’s hopes and fears of the two giants, and pursue trilateral cooperation with ASEAN in various fields, especially non-sensitive issues such as clean energy, illegal fishing, HADR, human and drug trafficking, and disease prevention.