This book examines the Australia-ASEAN Dialogue Partnership since its inception in 1974 and looks at the networks of engagement that have shaped relations across three areas: regionalism, non-traditional security, and economic engagement.

While US-centred bilateralism and ASEAN-led multilateralism have largely dominated the post-Cold War regional security architecture in the Indo-Pacific, increasing doubts about their effectiveness have resulted in countries turning to alternative forms of cooperation, such as minilateral arrangements. Compared to multilateral groupings, minilateral platforms are smaller in size, as well as more exclusive, flexible and functional. Both China and the US have contributed to minilateral initiatives in the Indo-Pacific. In the case of the former, there is the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism—involving China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam—established in 2015. In the case of the latter, there has been a revival of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue in 2017—involving the US, Australia, Japan and India. This book examines the rise of these arrangements, their challenges and opportunities, as well as their impact on the extant regional security architecture, including on the ASEAN-led multilateral order. A valuable guide for students and policy-makers looking to understand the nature and development of minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific region.

This book offers the most comprehensive analysis yet of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which remains the foremost dialogue forum for the promotion of cooperative security in the Asia-Pacific. Contributors focus on the perspectives and roles of the key players in the ARF – ASEAN, the United States, China, Japan, and Australia – and discuss to what extent these participants have shaped the Forum's institutional development and affected its achievements and prospects against the backdrop of the evolving regional security architecture. They also examine in depth how participants have used the Forum to respond to a range of important transnational security issues and challenges, including terrorism and maritime security, as well as disaster relief. This work also explores how, despite the difficulties in reaching a new consensus regarding the collective pursuit of preventive diplomacy, some activist participants have succeeded in bringing about a notable, albeit incipient, 'practical turn' in the ARF’s security cooperation. This book will appeal to students of South-East Asian Politics, Asian Security Studies and International Relations in general.

Against the backdrop of significant developments in regional economic cooperation and integration over the past decade, this book presents some of the key challenges facing ASEAN as it embarks on a bold and ambitious project to establish an ASEAN Economic Community by 2015. Organized under the auspices of the ASEAN-Australia Development Cooperation Program's Regional Economic Policy Support Facility, the book brings together authoritative studies written by prominent experts and academics on issues pertaining to ASEAN economic integration.

""As we celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the ASEAN-Japan Dialogue Partnership, the essays in this book remind us, and amplify the ASEAN-Japan relations. The complexities of this relationship, including the external influences which have impinged on its development over the years, are cogently discussed and recorded for the younger generation and students of ASEAN-Japan ties. The intricacy and spread of ASEAN-Japan cooperation mechanisms are also well highlighted in this book, while several thought-provoking commentaries on the future of this four-decade old partnership give pause to the reade.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is strategically significant because of its size, dynamism, and role in the Asian economic and security architectures. This paper examines how ASEAN seeks to strengthen these assets through "centrality" in intraregional and external policy decisions. It recommends a two-speed approach toward centrality in order to maximize regional incomes and benefit all member economies: first, selective engagement by ASEAN members in productive external partnerships and, second, vigorous policies to share gains across the region. This strategy has solid underpinnings in the Kemp-Wan theorem on trade agreements. It would warrant, for example, a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement with incomplete ASEAN membership, complemented with policies to extend gains across the region. The United States could support this framework by pursuing deep relations with some ASEAN members, while broadly assisting the region's development.

Papers originally presented at the second IMEMO-ISEAS ASEAN-Russia Relations Conference held in Moscow, Russia from 3 to 4 October 2006.