US-ASEAN centrality better than everecon, security, human

rights
White House 16 (The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, February 12,
2016, FACT SHEET: Unprecedented U.S.-ASEAN Relations, The White House,
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/02/12/fact-sheet-unprecedented-
us-asean-relations) RR
Engagement with Southeast Asia, a strategically important, economically dynamic region at the heart of the Asia-
Pacific, is a central pillar of the U.S. Rebalance to Asia . Sitting astride some of the worlds busiest shipping
lanes, Association of Southeast Asian Nations ( ASEAN) is strategically important to U.S. interests, and
is a key partner in addressing regional and global challenges . Collectively, the ten member states
of ASEAN comprise the third-largest economy in Asia and the seventh-largest in the world, with a combined GDP of $2.4 trillion. The
ASEAN region is young and dynamic, with a combined population of 632 million people--more than 65 percent of whom are below
the age of 35. The United States and ASEAN share a strong interest in building and sustaining
a rules-based order in the Asia-Pacific, one in which countries can pursue their
objectives peacefully and in accordance with international law and norms.
Recognizing ASEANs diplomatic, economic, and strategic importance to the U nited
States, the Obama Administration has invested heavily in its relationship with ASEAN. In 2009, his
first year in office, President Obama became the first U.S. president to meet all ten ASEAN leaders as a group; he has met
ASEAN leaders a total of six times. He has made seven separate visits to the ASEAN
region, more than twice the number of any previous U.S. president. In 2009, the United States
became a party to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia -- the
bedrock diplomatic document of ASEAN -- opening the door for the United States to join the East Asia Summit
(EAS). President Obama participated in the EAS for the first time in 2011 and has attended three of the four Summits since. With
strong U.S. support, the EAS has become the Asia-Pacifics premier leaders-level forum on
political and security issues, helping to advance a rules-based order and spur cooperation on
pressing challenges, including maritime security, countering violent extremism, and transnational
cyber cooperation. Secretary Kerry, Secretary of Commerce Pritzker, and other senior U.S. officials have
also significantly expanded their engagement with ASEAN leaders, both in regional fora and through visits
to ASEAN countries. In 2010, the United States became the first non-ASEAN country to establish a
dedicated diplomatic mission and appoint a resident Ambassador to the ASEAN Secretariat in
Jakarta. The Obama Administration also launched the Lower Mekong Initiative in 2009, creating a partnership between the United
States and the countries of the Mekong sub-region -- Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam -- to support sustainable and
responsible development, and to narrow the development gap by building capacity in ASEANs least developed members. Since
2010, the Obama Administration has provided $4 billion in development assistance to ASEAN
promoting regional stability and
countries. This assistance directly supports our strategic Rebalance to Asia by
sustainable development. The United States is strengthening people-to-people links
across ASEAN. In December 2013, President Obama launched the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative
(YSEALI), a network of people-to-people ties that will benefit U.S.-ASEAN relations for generations to come. YSEALI now engages
more than 60,000 young leaders (aged 18-35) from across ASEAN and the United States. The initiative provides
training, fellowships, and funding opportunities, as well as a platform to address
regional issues, including entrepreneurship, environmental protection, and education . The United
States is also working with ASEAN to strengthen womens leadership in the region by supporting emerging women leaders in the
public and private sectors. In 2012, the United States launched the Fulbright U.S.-ASEAN Visiting Scholar Initiative, bringing
academics from ASEAN countries to study in the United States, which adds to the more than 700 U.S. Fulbright scholarships awarded
to ASEAN members annually. In 2014, the United States and ASEAN launched the Science and Technology Fellows Program, which
connects young scientists in ASEAN with opportunities to solve real world challenges, like biodiversity, climate change, and
alternative fuels. Today, three million Americans visit the ASEAN region annually and visitors from ASEAN countries spend over $4
economic ties are strong, and growing stronger. ASEAN
billion in the United States each year. Our
countries are collectively the United States fourth-largest trading partner, with GDP growth that has
exceeded the global average every year for the past 15 years. Trade in goods expanded 5 percent in 2015 and now tops $226
 During the Obama Administration, trade in goods with ASEAN countries has
billion.
expanded by 55 percent. More than 500,000 American jobs are now supported by trade in goods and services with
ASEAN. U.S. companies have been the leading source of foreign direct investment (FDI) in ASEAN. With a stock of over $226 billion,
U.S. FDI in ASEAN has nearly doubled since 2008. FDI from ASEAN countries in the United States was $24.2 billion in
2014. We have expanded our trade ties with the region. Four ASEAN countries -- Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore and
Vietnam -- are part of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). We also have Trade and Investment Framework Agreements or
other formal trade dialogues with nine of the ten ASEAN countries and separately with ASEAN as an institution. These
agreements and dialogues provide a mechanism to address trade and investment
issues and deepen our economic ties . The United States collaborated with ASEAN countries to create the
ASEAN Single Window, which facilitates customs processing and reinforces an efficient regional trade environment. We have
strengthened defense ties throughout the ASEAN region . Under the Obama Administration, we have
significantly expanded our defense cooperation with ASEAN countries. Since 2010, the Secretary of Defense has attended every
the United
ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMM+), an important forum for advancing security cooperation. In 2011,
States became the first country to establish a dedicated Military Advisor/Liaison Officer at
the U.S. Mission to ASEAN in Jakarta. The Secretary of Defense hosted his ASEAN counterparts in the United States for
the first time for the U.S.-ASEAN Defense Forum in Hawaii in 2014 to discuss important strategic issues. In 2015, the United States
ASEAN
announced a new Technical Advisor to ASEAN to support increased information-sharing on transregional threats.
members are important partners in global security efforts, including the Global
Coalition to Counter ISIL (Malaysia, Singapore) and counter-piracy off the Horn of Africa (Malaysia,
Singapore, Thailand). We are partnering to address a growing number of shared global challenges. The United States and
ASEAN pledged more than a year ago to achieve a new global climate change agreement, which we
did with the rest of the world in Paris last December. The United States and ASEAN cooperate closely to create a low-
carbon economic growth trajectory and build more climate resilient societies . U.S.
assistance for climate change adaptation in Cambodia and the Philippines has strengthened the capacity of
local authorities to mitigate the impacts of destabilizing disasters. In Indonesia, the Philippines, and
Vietnam, U.S. climate change mitigation programs are promoting environmentally sustainable development strategies. The United
States works with ASEAN institutions, like the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance, to improve disaster response
coordination in support of the One ASEAN, One Response initiative. The ASEAN region has been at peace for 40 years, and ASEAN
plays an active and positive role in the region and in the world. ASEAN countries collectively provide 4,866 personnel to U.N.
peacekeeping efforts. Fifteen years ago, many feared that Southeast Asia would be the second front in the fight against terror.
Instead, Southeast Asian nations have made major strides in dealing with terrorism, though it remains a threat as elsewhere. We are
committed to working together with ASEAN to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Addis Ababa Action
Agenda around the world and in the region. Our economic development and governance programs in countries such as the
Philippines, Vietnam, and Indonesia have helped to generate jobs, increase incomes, and create a more reliable regulatory
environment. The U.S. is also partnering with ASEAN to advance the Global Health Security Agenda. By accelerating capacity to
prevent, detect, and rapidly respond to infectious disease threats, we are saving lives and advancing peace and security. Our
investments in health and education in seven ASEAN countries are increasing prospects for expanded and more inclusive economic
growth. The United States will continue to partner with ASEAN countries like the Philippines and Indonesia that are promoting good
governance and transparency across the region, including through the Open Government Partnership. Our support for democracy
programs in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Burma are building institutions that foster rules-based order and respect for human
rights. ASEANs leadership is central to building and sustaining a rules-based
order in the Asia-Pacific. Under the Obama Administration, the United States has strongly
backed ASEANs central role at the heart of the evolving institutional
architecture of the Asia-Pacific region, as demonstrated by our
commitment to institutions like the EAS and ADMM+ . ASEANs leadership of regional
institutions is founded on respect for international law and norms and peaceful
resolution of disputes, principles the United States shares. In 2015, ASEAN formally launched the ASEAN Community to
mark nearly 50 years of integration efforts. The United States strongly supports ASEANs effort to
realize a rules-based Community that serves the people of ASEAN and ensures human
rights and fundamental freedoms, including by helping ASEAN integrate
international human rights standards into legislative and judicial
processes. The ASEAN Convention Against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, endorsed in November
2015, is a landmark achievement and established a framework to effectively address human trafficking and ensure protection of
people throughout the region. The United States will continue to support ASEANs leadership
in ensuring full implementation of the Convention.The United States and ASEAN are taking their
relationship to a new level. In November 2015, the leaders of the United States and ASEAN formally
elevated their relationship to a strategic partnership . The Sunnylands Summit -- the first U.S.-ASEAN
standalone Summit in the United States and the first Summit for the ASEAN Community -- marks a new milestone in
our cooperation. The U.S.-ASEAN partnership has been important in
addressing shared challenges on a diverse range of issues -- from
combatting terrorism and pandemic disease, to upholding international
law and standards in the South China Sea and in cyberspace, to taking
meaningful action on climate change, inclusive economic growth, and
trafficking-in-persons. The United States is firmly committed to the Asia-
Pacific and to ASEAN as an essential pillar of the region.

ASEAN relations are central now, but Southeast Asia is

sensitive to shifts in U.S. policy The plan kills credibility
Wickett & Webb 16 (Xenia, fellows @ Chatham House, 2/17, Obamas Asia
Approach is Caught in a Sunnylands Triangle,
https://www.chathamhouse.org/expert/comment/obama-s-asia-approach-caught-
sunnylands-triangle#sthash.aedhEZOa.dpuf)

However, while much of the media attention is focusing on China, Sunnylands is as

much an effort to underline the importance of the US-ASEAN relationship in its own
right. There may be ample reasons to be sceptical of ASEANs organizational
viability; it is yet to establish itself as a credible security actor, capable of
recognizing a common interest and actively contributing to the regions security
architecture. Nonetheless, ASEANs 632 million people and combined GDP of $2.4
trillion have earned it a central role in Washingtons rebalance to Asia. In the
context of promoting a broader Asia policy, President Obama has continuously
offered US support for institution and capacity-building around ASEAN. But since
the announcement of the US rebalance to Asia, many in the region have
wondered whether the pendulum might swing back, essentially questioning
Washingtons reliability as an ally. In spending two days with ASEAN, Obama
is trying to allay such concerns. The parties will be emphasizing common
interests, particularly over economic and security issues like open sea lanes.
While the next US president might have differing priorities, Asia will likely
continue to be towards the top of the list as it was for Presidents George W Bush
and Bill Clinton before Obama.

ASEAN centrality is k2 balance of power in Asia their ASEAN

fails cards are outdated
Acharya 15 (Amitav Acharya is the UNESCO chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance
and professor of international relations at the School of International Service, American University,
Washington, ASEAN can survive great-power rivalry in Asia,
http://www.eastasiaforum.org/2015/10/04/asean-can-survive-great-power-rivalry-in-asia/) RR

policymakers increasingly see changing great-power politics in Asia

Pundits and
as a challenge to ASEAN. Chinas growing military assertiveness in the
South China Sea, the US rebalancing strategy, Japans moves to
reinterpret its constitution, and Indias growing military presence and
assertive diplomacy all press upon ASEANs choices in the region. Some argue
that ASEAN is both toothless and clueless in responding to these changes. Seen as talk shops,
ASEANs regional institutions the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), ASEAN+3, ASEAN+6 and the East
Asian Summit (EAS) might have been sufficient when great-power relations were less volatile right
after the Cold War, but they have outlived their usefulness. ASEAN centrality, and even its very
survival, is being written off. But this critique misses a major point. ASEANs
challenges are less about its external environment than strains in internal cohesion and capacity. The
external environment actually reinforces ASEANs security role . If unity holds and it
scales back its ambitions, ASEAN can survive and play an effective role in managing
great-power competition, at least in Southeast Asia. Traditional perspectives on the nature of
great-power politics are helpful in understand ASEANs role in the region. John Mearsheimer argues
rising powers must expand to survive, often leading them to seek regional
that
hegemony and provoking conflict. Others argue that international stability is a function of the
number of great powers and the distribution of capabilities among them. A multipolar system is more
prone to instability and conflict than a bipolar or unipolar one. These perspectives would point to a
bleak future for ASEAN. Chinese regional hegemony, whether coercive or benign, is bad news. It would
certainly cover at least parts of Southeast Asia, including South China Sea claimants. A multipolar
system dominated by great powers also gives little space to smaller, weaker states. Chinese moves in
the South and East China Seas and Russian moves in Ukraine give credence to this view of the world.
Some see these developments as signs of expansionism, a return of geopolitics and the resurrection
of nineteenth-century European geopolitics in Asia. There are alternative interpretations of what is
happening in the world. Hedley Bull stressed the special responsibility of the great powers in managing
multipolarity invariably leads to
international order. Karl Deutsch and David Singer rejected the idea that
may make a potential aggressor less sure about
great-power competition and conflict. It
its alignments and the size and power of a countervailing coalition . At the core
of all these ideas is the assumption of great-power primacy in maintaining stability. None recognises the influence
of smaller, weaker players on great-power politics. If traditional perspectives were correct, ASEAN would have been
doomed from its birth in 1967. ASEAN is an anomaly. It has contributed significantly to
reducing and managing conflict in Southeast Asia . Asia is now the only region in history where
the strong live in the world of the weak, and the weak lead the strong. Its record may have been mixed, but the
experience of ASEAN turns traditional realism on its head . Today the phrase great-power
rivalry is misleading. Significant and far-reaching cooperation exists at the regional and global levels. This is
underpinned by a type of interdependence that did not exist a century ago.

Asian instability escalates to nuclear armed conflict

Campbell 8 ( Kurt M, Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Dr. Campbell served in several capacities in government, including as Deputy
Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asia and the Pacific, Director on theNational Security Council Staff, previously the Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of the Center for a New
American Security (CNAS), served as Director of the Aspen Strategy Group and the Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Washington Quarterly, and was the founder and Principal of
StratAsia, a strategic advisory company focused on Asia, rior to co-founding CNAS, he served as Senior Vice President, Director of the International Security Program, and the Henry A.
Kissinger Chair in National Security Policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, doctorate in International Relation Theory from Oxford, former associate professor of
public policy and international relations at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and Assistant Director of the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University,
member of Council on Foreign Relations and International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Power of Balance: America in iAsia June8,
http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/CampbellPatelSingh_iAsia_June08.pdf)

Asian investment is also at record levels. Asian countries lead the world with unprecedented infrastructure projects.
With over $3 trillion in foreign currency reserves, Asian nations and businesses are starting to shape global
economic activity. Indian firms are purchasing industrial giants such as Arcelor Steel, as well as iconic brands of its
once-colonial ruler, such as Jaguar and Range Rover. Chinas Lenovo bought IBMs personal computer We call the
transformations across the Asia-Pacific the emergence of iAsia to reflect the adoption by countries across Asia of
fundamentally new strategic approaches to their neighbors and the world. Asian nations are pursuing
their interests with real power in a period of both tremendous potential and great uncertainty. iAsia
is: Integrating: iAsia includes increasing economic interdependence and a flowering of multinational forums to deal
with trade, cultural exchange, and, to some degree, security. Innovating: iAsia boasts the worlds most successful
manufacturing and technology sectors and could start taking the lead in everything from finance to nanotech to
green tech. Investing: Asian nations are developing infrastructure and human capital at unprecedented rates. But
the continent remains plagued by: Insecurity: Great-power rivalry is alive in Asia. Massive
military investments along with historic suspicions and contemporary territorial and other
conflicts make war in Asia plausible. Instability: From environmental degradation to violent extremism to
trafficking in drugs, people, and weapons, Asian nations have much to worry about. Inequality: Within nations and
between them, inequality in Asia is more stark than anywhere else in the world. Impoverished minorities in
countries like India and China, and the gap in governance and capacity within countries, whether as backward as
Burma or as advanced as Singapore, present unique challenges. A traditional approach to Asia will not suffice if the
United States is to both protect American interests and help iAsia realize its potential and avoid pitfalls. business
and the Chinese government, along with other Asian financial players, injected billions in capital to help steady U.S.
investment banks such as Merrill Lynch as the American subprime mortgage collapse unfolded. Chinese investment
funds regional industrialization, which in turn creates new markets for global products. Asia now accounts for over
40 percent of global consumption of steel 4 and China is consuming almost half of worlds available concrete. 5
Natural resources from soy to copper to oil are being used by China and India at astonishing rates, driving up
commodity prices and setting off alarm bells in Washington and other Western capitals. Yet Asia is not a
theater at peace. On average, between 15 and 50 people die every day from causes tied to conflict, and
suspicions rooted in rivalry and nationalism run deep. The continent harbors every traditional and
non-traditional challenge of our age: it is a cauldron of religious and ethnic tension; a source of terror and
extremism; an accelerating driver of the insatiable global appetite for energy; the place where the most people will
and the most
suffer the adverse effects of global climate change; the primary source of nuclear proliferation;
likely theater on Earth for nuclear conflict. Coexisting
a major conventional confrontation and even a
with the optimism of iAsia are the ingredients for internal strife, non-traditional threats like terrorism,
and traditional interstate conflict, which are all magnified by the risk of miscalculation
or poor decision-making.