In Jakarta, the foreign ministers of Southeast Asia, China, Japan, and South Korea gathered to test whether shared prosperity can survive competing territorial ambitions. The South China Sea — claimed almost entirely by Beijing yet contested by several of its neighbors — cast its shadow over every conversation about trade and recovery. Born from the wreckage of the 1997 financial crisis, the ASEAN-Plus-Three framework now faces a far more complex reckoning: how smaller nations navigate partnership with a power that is simultaneously their largest trading partner and their most assertive rival.
ASEAN-Plus-Three Tackles South China Sea Tensions and Economic Ties
Prosperity and geopolitics collided in a single room.
Mark
Why does it matter that Wang Yi is going instead of Qin Gang? Is that just a personnel shuffle?
Mimi
It's a signal. Qin Gang is the Foreign Minister—the top job. Wang Yi is State Councilor, which is senior but different. When a country sends a substitute for a major meeting, it can mean the issue isn't urgent enough for the top person, or it can mean the top person has problems. China said health reasons. But it also tells you something about how Beijing is prioritizing this moment.
Luke
We should be careful here. We don't know why Qin withdrew. "Health reasons" is what was stated. We can note the substitution happened and that it's unusual, but we can't read too much into the motivation without more information.
Mark
Fair. So what's actually at stake in these talks? Is this just theater, or could something change?
Mimi
The South China Sea is real. China claims almost all of it. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei—they all have overlapping claims. Ships have collided. Fishing vessels get stopped. It's not abstract. And Japan and South Korea care because their supply chains run through those waters.
Luke
Right, but these talks are ASEAN-plus-three. They're not a negotiation forum where territorial disputes get resolved. They're a place where countries talk about economic cooperation and regional issues. The South China Sea will be discussed, but the format doesn't really allow for settlement.
Mark
So why hold the talks at all if nothing gets decided?
Mimi
Because dialogue itself matters. It keeps channels open. It signals that despite the tensions, these countries still see value in talking to each other. And economically, there's real cooperation happening—trade, investment, pandemic recovery. You can have disagreement on territory and still work together on other things.
Luke
Though it's worth noting that Myanmar is also on the agenda, and that's a different kind of problem. Japan and South Korea want to keep Myanmar from moving closer to China. But ASEAN members don't all agree on how to handle Myanmar. So even on non-territorial issues, there's fracture.
Mark
Is the U.S. involvement—Blinken coming—does that change the dynamic?
Mimi
It adds another layer. The U.S. is signaling that it's engaged in the region, that it cares about these disputes and these economic relationships. For some ASEAN members, that's reassuring. For China, it's a complication.
Luke
Though we should note: Blinken is meeting ASEAN members separately, not at the ASEAN-plus-three talks. So he's present in the region but not at the same table as Wang Yi. That's a different kind of signal than if they were negotiating directly.
Il Polso
- China's foreign minister withdrew unexpectedly before the talks, sending top diplomat Wang Yi in his place — a quiet signal that Beijing understood the weight of the moment.
- The South China Sea dominates the agenda, with China claiming nearly all of it while Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei each hold overlapping and fiercely defended territorial claims.
- Myanmar's ongoing civil conflict adds a second fault line, with Japan and South Korea quietly alarmed that the country may drift deeper into China's orbit while ASEAN members remain divided on how to respond.
- The region's post-pandemic ambitions — to become a dominant engine of global economic growth — depend on a stability that the current territorial tensions are actively eroding.
- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's arrival in Jakarta signals that the stakes extend well beyond the region, as the East Asia Summit expands the conversation to eighteen nations including India, Australia, and Russia.
In Jakarta, the foreign ministers of Southeast Asia, China, Japan, and South Korea gathered to test whether shared prosperity can survive competing territorial ambitions. The South China Sea — claimed almost entirely by Beijing yet contested by several of its neighbors — cast its shadow over every conversation about trade and recovery. Born from the wreckage of the 1997 financial crisis, the ASEAN-Plus-Three framework now faces a far more complex reckoning: how smaller nations navigate partnership with a power that is simultaneously their largest trading partner and their most assertive rival.
On a Thursday in Jakarta, foreign ministers from the ten ASEAN nations sat down with their counterparts from China, Japan, and South Korea — a gathering that asked whether economic partnership could hold together a region pulling apart at its seams. Indonesia chaired the meeting, and the agenda was crowded, but one issue refused to stay in its place: the South China Sea.
China's Foreign Minister Qin Gang withdrew before the talks, citing health reasons, and was replaced by State Councilor Wang Yi — a substitution that carried its own quiet significance. Japan sent Yoshimasa Hayashi; South Korea sent Park Jin. Together they faced a room where the waterway at the center of so much regional anxiety was, as one Jakarta professor put it, almost certain to dominate.
Beijing claims nearly all of the South China Sea. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei contest those claims with their own, each rooted in history and economic necessity. Japan and South Korea, though geographically distant, watch closely — the sea is a vital artery for their supply chains. Western nations have grown increasingly uneasy with China's assertiveness: its pressure on Taiwan, its coast guard confrontations, its willingness to use proximity and scale as leverage.
Myanmar added another layer of tension. Analysts noted that Japan and South Korea were quietly concerned about the coup-wracked country drifting further into China's sphere — a concern not all ASEAN members shared equally. The forum, originally built after the 1997 financial crisis to restore economic trust, now had to hold together nations with deeply misaligned interests.
Friday would bring the East Asia Summit — eighteen nations, including India, Australia, Russia, and the United States. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was already en route to Jakarta. In the space of a single week, the region's most consequential questions had been compressed into a diplomatic calendar that moved between trade and sovereignty, partnership and constraint. What these meetings produced would signal how long the balance between economic interdependence and strategic rivalry could realistically be sustained.
Foreign ministers from Southeast Asia, China, Japan, and South Korea gathered in Jakarta on Thursday for talks that would test whether economic partnership could coexist with deepening territorial disputes. The meeting brought together the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations—Indonesia chairing this year, along with Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, the Philippines, and Myanmar—alongside representatives from Beijing, Tokyo, and Seoul. The grouping itself was born from crisis: established after the 1997 Asian financial crisis to rebuild economic ties between Southeast Asia and its larger neighbors, it had evolved into a forum where prosperity and geopolitics collided.
China's delegation carried an immediate signal of its own. Foreign Minister Qin Gang, who would normally lead Beijing's contingent, withdrew citing health reasons. State Councilor Wang Yi, China's top diplomat, took his place instead—a substitution that underscored the stakes. Japan sent Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi and South Korea dispatched Park Jin. The agenda was crowded, but one issue loomed over all others: the South China Sea, a body of water that belonged to no single nation yet was claimed almost entirely by Beijing.
The strategic waterway had become a flashpoint precisely because it mattered so much to so many. China asserted sovereignty over nearly the whole of it. Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Brunei held overlapping territorial claims of their own, each backed by historical arguments and economic interest. Japan and South Korea, thousands of miles away, had their own reasons to watch closely: the sea was a critical artery for their global supply chains. Western powers and regional allies had grown increasingly alarmed by Beijing's assertiveness—its pressure on Taiwan, its coast guard vessels clashing with ships from other nations, its willingness to use its size and proximity as leverage.
Akslius Jemadu, a professor at Pelita Harapan University in Jakarta, said plainly that the South China Sea would almost certainly dominate discussion. The recent tensions in the region had made it unavoidable. Yet the waterway was only one of several thorns. Myanmar, wracked by military coup and civil conflict, presented another problem that cut differently through the room. Teuku Rezasyah, an international relations expert at Padjadjaran University, noted that Japan and South Korea had their own interest in preventing Myanmar from drifting further into China's sphere of influence—a concern that did not necessarily align with how all ASEAN members saw their own interests.
The ASEAN-plus-three framework had recently pivoted toward recovery and growth. Post-pandemic, the group had discussed ways to deepen cooperation on health and economic development, with an eye toward making the Asia-Pacific region a dominant engine of global economic expansion. That ambition required stability and trust. It also required managing the fact that China's economic weight and military reach had grown substantially since 1997, and that smaller neighbors now had to navigate relationships with a power that was simultaneously their largest trading partner and their most assertive territorial claimant.
The Thursday talks were only the opening act. Friday would bring the East Asia Summit, a larger gathering of eighteen nations including India, Australia, Russia, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Canada. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was arriving in Jakarta on Thursday morning and would meet with ASEAN members the next day. The diplomatic calendar had compressed the region's most pressing questions into a single week, forcing ministers to move between conversations about trade and conversations about sovereignty, between the language of partnership and the language of constraint. What emerged from these meetings would shape how the region managed the tension between economic interdependence and strategic competition—a balance that had grown increasingly difficult to maintain.
Citazioni salienti
South China Sea is probably going to be one of the issues discussed during the ASEAN-plus-three meeting in light of recent tensions in the area— Aleksius Jemadu, professor at Pelita Harapan University
Japan and South Korea have an interest to prevent Myanmar from joining China's orbit— Teuku Rezasyah, international relations expert at Padjadjaran University
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