The first Asean-United States Maritime Exercise held earlier this month was neither politically sensitive nor technically sophisticated. Conducted in undisputed international waters in the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea, it saw the US Navy deploy "suspicious boats" in a mock exercise to help its Asean counterparts search, verify, and seize the vessels.

The real significance of the exercise lies in the effort to balance two previous joint maritime exercises Asean had with China last October and in April this year. In the April exercise, Asean insisted on using the term "South-east Asian countries" instead of "Asean" to signal that Asean had only one exercise with China before conducting a similar exercise with the US.