South Korea has far-reaching geopolitical ambitions but focusing on the regions closest to it will bring more dividends in a competitive world.

South Korea’s new Indo-Pacific strategy underscores the country’s ambitions to be a “global pivotal state”. Seoul seeks to effect a careful balance: inclining towards the US-led grouping advocating a “free and open Indo-Pacific”, while at the same time engaging China.

The ASEAN-EU Summit in Brussels highlighted potential areas for closer cooperation between the two regional blocs, provided leaders can surmount strategic and other differences at this tricky juncture in world politics.

The UK has launched a robust “tilt” towards the Indo-Pacific. To its credit, it has executed a series of high-profile diplomatic engagements and military deployments to the region. The question, however, is not about London’s desire to engage with the dynamic region but whether this tilt can be sustained.

New South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol has a tough balancing act to pull off in his foreign policy as South Korea remains wary of greater US-China rivalry and China’s rise. The Yoon administration will likely continue to deepen its economic relations with ASEAN, and place more emphasis on security cooperation and a greater alignment with the US's values-based diplomacy.

ASEAN leaders will finally meet US President Joe Biden at the long-awaited US-ASEAN summit in Washington. Whether ASEAN and US can find convergence on regional issues, such as Washington’s desire to manage the rise of China, will be a pressing challenge.

The majority of Southeast Asians continue to regard China as the most influential political, strategic and economic power in the region, says the State of Southeast Asia 2022 survey report published by the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. But wariness of Chine's rising influence has not gone away, due in no small part to China's continued aggressive moves, especially in the South China Sea. For China, winning the hearts of ASEAN countries might take gaining trust and upholding key principles such as the rule of law, promotion of good governance and strengthening of human rights.

The European Council reached an agreement on an EU strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific in April 2021, and in September, it presented a joint communication in which ASEAN was mentioned 31 times, paving the way for the EU to join the other longstanding advocates of the Indo-Pacific strategy. Given the similarities in ASEAN's Outlook on the Indo-Pacific and the EU's Indo-Pacific strategy, ASEAN can play a role in the EU's hopes to shape a rules-based international order and offer a rules-based alternative to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

ISEAS researcher Joanne Lin notes that the G7 is courting ASEAN in a bid to increase its profile in the Indo-Pacific. And while both groups share some common ground on issues such as the South China Sea and supply chains, they also diverge in significant ways on other issues such as supporting values of democracy and human rights, which stems as much from differences within ASEAN as the fact that expressing such views draws the ire of China.