"The Quad and ASEAN Must Learn to Work Together" - by CWP alum Manjari Chatterjee Miller

This September, Indonesia, one of the largest and most influential members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), will host the ASEAN leaders’ summit. Building ASEAN’s footprint in the Asia-Pacific has been key to one of the central tenets of the organization—ASEAN centrality. As a consequence, some have argued that ASEAN members eye the grouping of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad) with Australia, India, Japan and the United States as a competitor in the region. ASEAN centrality, or the idea that the institution of ASEAN should be the primary force behind any region-wide architecture built in the Asia-Pacific, is so important to the organization that it is enshrined in its charter. However, the interpretation of the principle of ASEAN centrality and how much it should be emphasized can vary depending on which ASEAN member is asked. More to the point, the structure and benefits of the Quad are very different from ASEAN and complement, not supplement it. This is important to realize because forging a solid Quad-ASEAN relationship is key to stability in the Indo-Pacific.

Article by Manjari Chatterjee Miller Originally published at Hindustan Times August 21, 2023 3:31 pm (EST)

Manjari Chatterjee Miller is senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). She is also a research associate in the Contemporary South Asian Studies Programme at the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies at the University of Oxford. An expert on India, China, South Asia, and rising powers, she is the author of Why Nations Rise: Narratives and the Path to Great Power (2021, shortlisted for the 2022 Hedley Bull Prize in International Relations) and Wronged by Empire: Post-Imperial Ideology and Foreign Policy in India and China (2013). Miller is also the co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of China-India Relations (2020), a monthly columnist for the Hindustan Times, and a frequent contributor to policy and media outlets in the United States and Asia.

Photo Credit: Worldpose for family portrait during ASEAN conference with European Union in Jakarta, Indonesia in July 2023. By Photographer: Oscar Siagian - https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/photo/P-061577~2F00-06, Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=134527748