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Introduction: ASEAN at a Crossroads
Southeast Asia faces a defining strategic choice. As US-China tensions intensify across the Indo-Pacific, ASEAN member states confront a fundamental question: will the region remain a contested arena where Washington and Beijing compete for influence, or will it emerge as an autonomous actor capable of shaping its own regional order? The 2026 ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute survey provides crucial evidence that ASEAN has begun rejecting its traditional role as a passive stage for great power competition. Japan must recognise this shift and position itself as a strategic enabler of ASEAN autonomy—not as an act of regional solidarity, but as a core component of its own economic and security strategy.
ASEAN’s Unstable Equilibrium: Neither China nor America
The 2026 ISEAS survey reveals a paradoxical pattern in ASEAN attitudes toward the two superpowers. Trust in China among ASEAN respondents reached 39.8 percent in 2026, marking the first time confidence in Beijing exceeded distrust since the survey’s inception. This headline figure has generated considerable analysis suggesting a potential shift in ASEAN alignment toward China. However, this interpretation misreads the underlying data and ASEAN strategic thinking.
The survey simultaneously shows that 55.4 percent of ASEAN respondents expressed concern about China’s expanding economic influence, while 66.1 percent worried about Beijing’s growing political and strategic power. This bifurcation reflects a critical distinction: ASEAN economies are structurally enmeshed with China’s supply chains and investment patterns, creating inescapable economic interdependence. Yet this economic reality coexists with deep strategic wariness. ASEAN elites understand that economic integration does not necessarily translate into political alignment or security partnership.
Confidence in the United States presents an equally complicated picture. Despite the unpredictability of the Trump administration, net trust in Washington remains positive at the regional level. However, this aggregate figure obscures significant country-level variation. Indonesia and Malaysia harbour substantial distrust toward the US, driven primarily by Washington’s perceived equivocation on Palestinian rights and its broader Middle East policy. Singapore has developed distinct concerns regarding American trade policy opacity, particularly regarding tariff schedules and market access terms that affect its entrepôt economy.
Crucially, when ASEAN respondents expressed preference for China over the United States in hypothetical scenarios, this should be interpreted not as ideological realignment but as a rational assessment of relative trustworthiness. The underlying sentiment is not pro-China alignment but rather anti-dependence on either superpower. ASEAN has concluded that neither Washington nor Beijing can be relied upon to prioritise Southeast Asian interests when they conflict with great power competition.
The Emergence of ASEAN Autonomy as Strategic Imperative
This recognition has catalysed a fundamental reorientation in ASEAN strategic thinking. A clear majority of survey respondents endorsed the proposition that ASEAN must strengthen its collective resilience and institutional unity to manage pressure from both superpowers. This represents a significant departure from the traditional ASEAN doctrine of non-alignment and passive neutrality. Southeast Asian policymakers increasingly understand that passive positioning—whether framed as non-alignment, hedging, or neutrality—is insufficient in an era of intensifying US-China strategic competition.
The 2025-2026 trade dispute cycle provided a practical demonstration of this vulnerability. When the Trump administration applied tariff pressure on ASEAN members, individual Southeast Asian nations proved unable to present a unified negotiating position. Instead, each country capitulated to bilateral pressure and negotiated separately with Washington, sacrificing potential collective leverage. This fragmentation revealed the institutional weakness underlying ASEAN’s formal structures. The organisation possesses consensus-based decision-making mechanisms designed to protect state sovereignty, but these same mechanisms prevent coordinated action when external pressure is applied selectively to individual members.
ASEAN centrality—the principle that Southeast Asia should shape regional architecture rather than being shaped by external powers—cannot survive this pattern of fragmentation. If ASEAN member states continue responding to great power pressure through individual accommodation rather than collective resistance, the organisation risks becoming not a bulwark of regional autonomy but a centrifugal force that accelerates regional fragmentation and undermines the ASEAN community itself.
Institutional Capacity as the Critical Gap
The ISEAS survey identifies a crucial diagnostic finding often overlooked in geopolitical analysis: the primary obstacles to ASEAN integration are not political will, ideological disagreement, or prioritisation of national interest—factors frequently cited in policy discourse. Rather, the survey identifies “lack of domestic capacity for technocratic implementation among member states” and “differences in economic development” as the principal barriers to effective economic integration.
This distinction carries profound implications. ASEAN member states have negotiated extensive frameworks for economic integration, including the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), various trade agreements, and sectoral cooperation mechanisms. The implementation gap reflects not disagreement about objectives but rather the uneven administrative capacity of member states to execute customs procedures, enforce standards, verify rules of origin, and maintain digital systems that would enable seamless intra-regional commerce.
Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Laos possess substantially less developed customs infrastructure, regulatory capacity, and digital systems than Singapore, Thailand, and Indonesia. These capacity differentials create friction that prevents the realisation of ASEAN’s integration agenda. Until Southeast Asian governments can consistently implement agreed rules across their territories, ASEAN integration will remain aspirational rather than operational. This capacity gap is not a problem that ASEAN can resolve through additional high-level declarations or consensus statements. It requires sustained technical assistance, institutional transfer, and investment in Southeast Asian state capacity.
Japan’s Strategic Role in Enabling ASEAN Autonomy
Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae’s May 2026 visit to Vietnam and engagement with President and Communist Party Chief To Lam reflects Japan’s emerging recognition of its role in ASEAN’s institutional development. Japan is uniquely positioned to support ASEAN’s transition from rule-taker to rule-maker in the regional order.
The cooperation agenda is concrete and substantive. Japan can provide technical assistance in customs modernisation, digital system implementation, and standards harmonisation—precisely the capacity-building areas that ISEAS respondents identified as critical bottlenecks. Japanese expertise in supply chain management, regulatory compliance, and digital infrastructure is directly transferable to Southeast Asian contexts. More broadly, Japan can anchor a coalition of middle powers—including Australia, Canada, the European Union, and India—to support ASEAN’s institutional strengthening. This approach aligns with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s January 2026 call for “Middle Power Unity” at the Davos Forum, a framework that carries particular resonance for Japan given its economic scale and strategic position.
Japan’s support for ASEAN autonomy should not be framed as altruism or regional solidarity. Rather, it serves Japan’s direct economic interests. Japanese companies operating across ASEAN supply chains face substantial costs from customs delays, regulatory inconsistency, and supply chain fragmentation caused by ASEAN’s incomplete integration. Harmonised standards, streamlined customs procedures, and predictable regulatory frameworks reduce Japanese corporate compliance costs and enhance investment security. Japanese manufacturers depend on ASEAN as a manufacturing hub and market; a fragmented ASEAN with inconsistent regulations increases business risk and reduces returns on investment.
Beyond trade facilitation, Japan can support ASEAN’s development of autonomous capacity in strategic domains: climate transition, energy security, food security, maritime security, and digital governance. These are areas where ASEAN faces genuine vulnerabilities that neither China nor the United States will prioritise. Japanese technological capacity in renewable energy, agricultural innovation, and maritime domain awareness can be mobilised to strengthen ASEAN resilience. Support for ASEAN rule-making in digital and green fields—domains where regional standards remain unsettled—would enable Southeast Asia to shape global standards rather than adopting rules written by Washington, Beijing, or Brussels.
Strategic Outlook: Autonomy as Stability
The 2026 ISEAS survey does not demonstrate ASEAN realignment toward China, as some analysts have suggested. Rather, it documents ASEAN’s growing recognition that structural dependence on either superpower is incompatible with regional stability and prosperity. This represents a maturation of ASEAN strategic thinking—a move beyond hedging toward active autonomy.
Japan’s strategic interest lies in supporting this transition. A resilient, institutionally capable ASEAN with genuine autonomous capacity to manage regional affairs serves Japanese interests more effectively than either a China-aligned Southeast Asia or a Southeast Asia fractured by competitive US-China pressure. Japan possesses the technical capacity, economic resources, and strategic credibility to enable ASEAN’s institutional development in ways that neither superpower can offer.
This is not a zero-sum proposition where supporting ASEAN autonomy weakens Japan’s relationship with Washington. Rather, a stronger, more autonomous ASEAN reduces the likelihood that regional tensions will escalate into great power conflict. From Japan’s perspective—as an island nation dependent on freedom of navigation and regional stability—ASEAN autonomy is not a competing strategic objective but a prerequisite for a stable Indo-Pacific in which Japan can prosper.
