ASEAN leaders head to White House for key summit

US rolls out the red carpet for Southeast Asian leaders amid increasing rivalry in the Asia Pacific. Leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations will meet United States President Joe Biden at a White House summit on Thursday, as the US attempts to drive home its “enduring commitment” to the region. Biden is rolling out the red carpet for the Southeast Asian leaders – including Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Sen who has wiped out any domestic opposition to his rule and, in his role as the current chair of ASEAN, ruffled feathers by becoming the first foreign leader to visit Myanmar since the February 2021 coup. “The decision will only bring regress and risks ASEAN aiding and abetting the military’s atrocities on the ground.” Indo-Pacific Strategy Beyond the crisis in Myanmar, Biden has convened the summit at a time of intense rivalry in the Asia Pacific, with China an increasingly assertive presence from the Pacific to the South China Sea, where it lays claims to almost the entire area under its so-called nine-dash line. support for ASEAN-based multilateralism empowers the bloc and strengthens its resilience, especially in the face of Chinese efforts to divide it, which it has repeatedly done to blunt ASEAN’s ability to push back against Chinese encroachment in the South China Sea,” Brian Harding, a senior expert on Southeast Asia at the United States Institute for Peace, wrote in a preview of the summit.