As officials gather in Bangkok ahead of the 35th Asean summit next week, it's a good time to ask what will be done to breathe life into the principles laid out in its document on the Indo-Pacific that was unveiled this year.

It is an important question, not least because of the growing intensity of the US-China tussle for supremacy in the region and the danger that the Asean-centred regional order would fall into disarray as a result.