As the Asean Summit convenes this week in Indonesia, Asean stands at a crossroads. The outcome will help determine if it continues its decades-long contributions to the region’s peace and prosperity or succumbs to irrelevance – in essence, whether Asean thrives or withers.

Externally, Asean confronts an uncertain and dangerous environment: To its west, an Indian Ocean that is brimming with intensified China-India competition, adding to the existing and overarching China-US rivalry. To its north, a north-south chain of uncertainty and tensions that runs from the powder keg that is North-east Asia – with the combustible Korean peninsula dynamic a key, though not the only element – to the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, all susceptible to open conflict caused by miscalculation. To its east, an intensified China-US competition in the Pacific as the former tests and prods the latter’s resolve.