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The past year has perhaps been the most turbulent and disruptive one since the end of the Cold War, with the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping across the world, claiming millions of lives, ravaging economies and accentuating geopolitical tensions between major powers, especially US-China rivalry. Early in and early out of the pandemic, China has further consolidated its position as the most influential economic and political-strategic power in Southeast Asia. Beijing also actively extended "mask and vaccine diplomacy" towards ASEAN and its member states to promote China's image as a responsible major power and shake off the stigma of the "Chinese origins" of the coronavirus.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a paramount test of ASEAN's resilience and Vietnam's ability to lead as the ASEAN Chair in 2020.1 While many ASEAN member states (AMS) remain preoccupied with containing the virus or embroiled in political-social turmoil and economic depression, Vietnam has effectively brought the pandemic under control2 and is projected to record economic growth at 1.8% this year.3 Vietnam therefore has a greater bandwidth to focus on the ASEAN agenda and fulfill its chairmanship responsibility. It has utilised digital diplomacy to maintain the momentum of ASEAN dialogue and cooperation. All ASEAN meetings, including those with its Dialogue Partners, have been held virtually since April 2020. The pandemic has amplified and accelerated systemic shifts in the region, especially the intensification of US-China rivalry and the diversification of global supply chains to reduce over-dependency on China. The stakes are particularly high for Vietnam to leverage these strategic and economic shifts to its interests and to build a "Cohesive and Responsive ASEAN" in parallel. This article examines the key challenges and achievements of Vietnam's ASEAN chairmanship, and how Vietnam has transposed its national interests into the regional agenda. The scope of examination focuses on three aspects: handling the COVID-19 pandemic; managing great power competition; and navigating the contested waters in the South China Sea (SCS) and the Mekong.

Developments in the South China Sea (SCS) over the past two decades provide a telling illustration of the evolution of ASEAN–China relations. Its progression since the early 1990s indicates how the relationship has grown more asymmetrical, how realpolitik has marched ahead of the rule of law, and how power equations in the SCS are rapidly changing as a result of China's rise. China started negotiations with ASEAN on a code of conduct in the SCS in 2000 which culminated in the signing of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) in November 2002.2 The DOC is not designed to resolve territorial and jurisdictional disputes in the SCS, and instead prescribes general principles for peaceful settlement of disputes, a set of norms of conduct to maintain the status quo, a platform for maritime cooperation and confidence building, and a stepping-stone towards a future code of conduct.

Since the roll-out of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy by US President Donald Trump and the revival of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or the Quad (comprising the US, Japan, India and Australia) in late 2017, the Indo-Pacific concept has gained a lot of traction in international relations discourse. Yet there is no common understanding or authoritative definition of the term even among its proponents. During the past two years, the US, Japan, India and Australia have laid out their own articulations of the Indo-Pacific as they incorporate this concept into their respective foreign policy. China meanwhile shuns the Indo-Pacific discourse, suspecting that this is a China containment strategy. At the initiative and urging of Indonesia, ASEAN had held internal discussions to formulate a common ASEAN position on this issue. As a result, the 34th ASEAN Summit in Bangkok in June 2019 adopted the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP). This article examines the content of the AOIP and analyses what it may mean for ASEAN and its member states.

Over the past two decades, developing a code of conduct (COC) for the parties in the South China Sea (SCS) appears to be the end-goal of the longstanding ASEAN-China discourse on the SCS. It was the original objective of ASEAN's engagement with China on the SCS in the late 1990s, which led to the signing of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC) in 2002. After the decade-long impasse regarding the DOC implementation guidelines was cleared in 2011, ASEAN member states and China embarked on official consultations on the COC in September 2013. From 2013 to 2016, the consultations only focused on accumulating commonalities and discussing procedural matters. Beginning from mid-2017, China shifted gear and adopted a more forward-leaning approach towards the COC, encouraged by the Philippines' decision under the Duterte administration to play down the 2016 arbitration ruling and ASEAN's meek response to the ruling itself. This paved the way for the adoption of the Framework of the COC in August 2017 and the Single Draft Negotiating Text (SDNT) in June 2018. This article examines some potential pitfalls for ASEAN in the COC negotiations, and argues that the diplomatic progress in the COC process should not distract and divert ASEAN's attention from the continuing problems at sea.

This article aims to locate the place of ASEAN in Australia's Indo-Pacific outlook, by dissecting Australia's defense and foreign policy formulations, its strategic interests vis-à-vis ASEAN, and the outcomes of the AASS. It argues that Australia's embrace of the Indo-Pacific does not undermine the value of ASEAN in Australian foreign policy. On the contrary, Australia's interests in ASEAN's open regionalism and economic dynamism come into sharper focus with the extension of its outlook from Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific.

All inter-state organisations are shaped and challenged by the changing engagement of their major stakeholders, the difficulties associated with consensus-based reform and consolidation, the inevitable gap between expectations and feasible delivery, and the evolving strategic environment within which they exist. Where ASEAN is concerned, the mutually reinforcing effects of such challenges will test the East Asia Summit (EAS) and threaten its peak position in the ASEAN-led regional architecture in the coming years. How ASEAN member states and ASEAN itself respond will help determine the EAS' future status.

The State of Southeast Asia 2020 Survey, which canvassed the views of 1,308 government officials, academics, businesspeople, civil society leaders, and media professionals about the state of the region, holds four key takeaways for ASEAN that could inform decision making within the organisation and its member states. First, ASEAN member states (AMS) remain preoccupied with domestic and internal issues, which could limit their capacity to focus on regional challenges. Second, the goal of a people-oriented, people-centred ASEAN Community remains far-fetched as concerns over the disconnect between ASEAN's actions at the inter-governmental level and its on-the ground impact remain huge. Third, the survey findings attest to ASEAN and its member states' continuing commitment to preserve an open and inclusive regional order in Southeast Asia and beyond. Fourth, the respondents' split choice almost down the middle between China and the US – in a hypothetical scenario where the rivalry compels the region to take sides – highlights the polarising consequence of such a binary choice on ASEAN unity, and the imperative to keep ASEAN an open and inclusive medium for multilateral cooperation among external partners. There is an inherent tension between the respondents' simultaneous domestic focus and their desire for ASEAN to be more proactive and outward-looking, because a proactive ASEAN requires consistent effort and commitment from ASEAN leaders. It drives home the paramount challenge confronting the ASEAN leaders in attending to their domestic constituencies while investing adequately in ASEAN's capacity. They must embrace the symbiotic nature of national and regional interests and nurture both in tandem to reinforce ASEAN's ability to shape regional developments.

The unfolding competition between a more aggressive, unilateralist China and a more unpredictable, unilateralist USA heralds the end of the benign post-Cold War order that benefited Southeast Asia and ASEAN.1 As the new strategic disorder sets in, ASEAN's balancing act and aspirations for centrality – both within its diverse membership and in relations with the two great powers – have become more difficult and tenuous. COVID-19, by laying bare the ever-widening chasm between the two superpowers, has heightened fears that ASEAN member states will become more disunited and ASEAN and its broader ASEAN+ groupings will be paralysed.

Leaders of ASEAN member states gather in Singapore this week for the 32nd ASEAN Summit to decide the ASEAN agenda for the year. They will give policy guidance on the parameters and deliverables of a Resilient and Innovative ASEAN. As is the practice, ASEAN watchers will go through its outcome documents, especially the Chairman's Statement, to gauge ASEAN's positions on important strategic and economic issues affecting the region.

China's engagement with ASEAN over the South China Sea, from the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea to the ongoing negotiations on the Code of Conduct (COC), exhibits a dynamic continuum with two constants: 1. Dismissal of any legally binding instrument that would constrain China's freedom of action; and 2. Persistent territorialization of the SCS despite Beijing's simultaneous diplomatic engagement with ASEAN. The continuity is juxtaposed with elements of change in China's engagement with ASEAN, as afforded by the former's growing power and influence. This metamorphosis is manifested in China's efforts to undermine ASEAN unity, robustly assert its claims in the SCS, and use economic statecraft towards ASEAN member states in return for their acquiescence. China's more "active" engagement in the COC over the past three years is tactical and does not signify a fundamental change in its long-term strategy that seeks to eventually establish its sovereignty and control over the SCS based on the nine-dash-line (NDL). The divergent positions between China and some ASEAN member states on the COC, especially its scope of application, self-restraint elements, legal status and dispute settlement mechanism, are not easy to reconcile. The COC may end up being a non-binding political document with a general scope of application, which will have little effect in regulating the contracting parties' behaviour.

China's engagement with ASEAN over the South China Sea, from the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea to the ongoing negotiations on the Code of Conduct (COC), exhibits a dynamic continuum with two constants:1. Dismissal of any legally binding instrument that would constrain China's freedom of action; and2. Persistent territorialization of the SCS despite Beijing's simultaneous diplomatic engagement with ASEAN.The continuity is juxtaposed with elements of change in China's engagement with ASEAN, as afforded by the former's growing power and influence. This metamorphosis is manifested in China's efforts to undermine ASEAN unity, robustly assert its claims in the SCS, and use economic statecraft towards ASEAN member states in return for their acquiescence.

The intensity of minilateral coalition-building among the United States and its Indo-Pacific partners, especially the consolidation of the Quad and the formation of AUKUS in 2021, has rekindled concerns over the relevance of ASEAN multilateralism and ASEAN's claim to centrality in the regional architecture. Although the challenge to ASEAN-led mechanisms from competing and parallel institutions initiated by other powers is not a new phenomenon, this article argues that the intensity of today's geopolitical tensions, primarily but not exclusively between the United States and China, has driven America and its Indo-Pacific partners to invest more in minilateral coalitions than in ASEAN institutions to advance their strategic goals. The institutional challenge that these minilaterals present to ASEAN is three-fold. First, they signify the entrenchment of hard balancing by the United States and its Indo-Pacific partners and their reduced reliance on ASEAN's normative influence. Second, their small, nimble membership holds out better prospects than ASEAN institutions in delivering tangible results and effective responses to regional security challenges. Third, they accentuate the pre-existing strategic incoherence within ASEAN in the face of Great Power competition. (Contemp Southeast Asia/GIGA)

This article examines the rationales and manifestations of China's vision for an ASEAN-China Community of Common Destiny (CCD). It argues that the ASEAN-China CCD proposal signals the crystallization of a deliberative and invested Chinese strategy for the future of ASEAN-China relations. This strategy aims to reinforce the ongoing power shift in Southeast Asia and engineer a smooth transition to a China-centred regional order against the backdrop of a perceived decline in US influence in the region. In this process, some predilections towards the pre-modern Sino-centric hierarchical regional system have resurfaced as China seeks to renegotiate the normative content of the regional order, and condition ASEAN member states into "good behaviours" accordingly. The article also examines the limits of the CCD concept in ASEAN-China relations as manifested by ASEAN's ambivalent and selective responses. The ASEAN-China CCD vision injects a sense of determinism about the inevitability of the intertwined destiny between China and ASEAN member states, using geography, history and Chinese economic power as its basis. However, these push factors could also be burdens in an asymmetrical relationship which structurally induces ASEAN member states' constant fear of over-dependency and loss of autonomy. The article therefore argues that the ASEAN-China CCD will not be a linear trajectory as ASEAN and most of its member states, while continuing to deepen cooperation and engagement with China, will persistently pursue open regionalism and perpetuate multi-polarity in Southeast Asia. (Contemp South-east Asia/GIGA)