ASEAN and New Macro-Regional and Mini-Lateral Frameworks: The Belt and Road Initiative, Indo-Pacific Concepts, AUKUS

The chapter focuses on the challenges that ASEAN is encountering in formulating its response to the formats the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Indo-Pacific Region (IPR) and the military block AUKUS established by Australia, the United States and the UK. First, the chapter reveals the specificity of global changes from an ASEAN perspective: amidst the de facto non-existing unipolar, but not yet multipolar world, the association is facing challenges emanating from a fragmentation of the world order. Second, it explores points of convergence between the BRI, the IPR and AUKUS. Third, an analysis of the possible synergy between the mentioned above projects with ASEAN’s prospective plans, including from a digital perspective, is presented.