A

ttending his last ASEAN summit as the leader of Indonesia, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono represented both the hopes and anxieties of the 10-member ASEAN over China when he said in Myanmar on Monday: '€œThere are many questions on whether the rise of China will last peacefully or, on the contrary, if China'€™s rise will create political and security problems for the region or even the world'€.

As the largest member of the regional grouping in terms of geography and economy, Indonesia has demonstrated leadership by '€œreminding'€ China of the need to seek flexibility and to prioritize diplomacy and peace while settling its territorial disputes.

Indonesia does not have to clash with China but any conflict between the Asian giant and its ASEAN neighbors will affect Indonesia, whose territory of Natuna faces the disputed South China Sea.

It is just a matter of time before China will replace the US as the world'€™s largest economy. Its government and the people are euphoric as the superpower status edges ever closer.

The international community, however, hopes that China will eventually be able to readjust its powerful position in a more mature and sensible ways.

The Associated Press rightly chose the heading '€œChina tensions top Southeast Asian summit talks'€ for its report on the ASEAN summit in Nay Pyi Taw, over the weekend. Smaller neighbors in the region are nervous of China, with its military and economic might showing a tendency to flex its muscles, while at the same time they are too economically dependent on China'€™s growth.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung and the Philippine President Benigno Aquino III demanded their colleagues be more explicit in facing China because the two countries had been involved in military contact with China over their overlapping sovereignty claims in the South China Sea.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying insisted that the issue should not concern ASEAN and that Beijing was opposed to '€œone or two countries'€™ attempts to use the South Sea issue to harm the overall friendship and cooperation between China and ASEAN'€.

In dealing with China, President Thein Sein of host Myanmar deserved merit because he did not repeat the ridiculous behavior of the Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen who acted more as the '€œspokesperson'€ of China than the leader of ASEAN'€™s annual summit in Phnom Penh in 2012.

President Yudhoyono, too, has made a strong message to China in the last regional summit he attended as the leader of Indonesia.