The outlook, which ASEAN leaders agreed on during the ASEAN Summit in Bangkok on June 22, had been proposed by Indonesia as the guideline for ASEAN in engaging external partners, including the two rivaling superpowers — the United States and China.

The head of the Foreign Ministry’s policy analysis and development agency, Siswo Pramono, said regional powers had begun to express support following the adoption.

At last week’s Group of 20 Osaka Summit in Japan, leaders of Japan, South Korea, India and Australia — all considered ASEAN partners — expressed support for the outlook and for ASEAN centrality during their bilateral meetings with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

“Now we are down to the more technical aspects of it, [such as] what cooperation can be implemented through the ASEAN-plus-one mechanism,” Siswo said on the sidelines of a discussion held by the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) on Thursday.

The Indo-Pacific concept is an evolving strategic concept for a vast regional architecture that underpins the area straddling the Indian and Pacific oceans.

While interpretations of it vary depending on geopolitical interests, many countries have set their sights on the region and developed their own concepts, such as India’s Act East Policy, Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific and Australia’s Foreign Policy White Paper.

Siswo said the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific remained focused on the issues of maritime cooperation, connectivity, sustainable development goals (SDGs) and economic cooperation. He said countries that were interested in ASEAN’s Indo-Pacific concept and supported ASEAN centrality could begin to synergize their programs into ASEAN’s main focus of the Indo-Pacific region.

“America has the BUILD Act, which was discussed at the last High Level Dialogue [on the Indo-Pacific]. Now we want to synergize it with the cooperation programs and see where they can help,” he said. “[Under the ASEAN approach] it will be the same with [China’s] BRI as well as with others,” Siswo said.

Last October, the US passed the BUILD Act, which seeks to strengthen US private-sector investment in the region in an apparent move to counter China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

The BUILD Act is claimed to modernize the US’ Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a government agency established in 1971 to help US companies gain footholds in emerging markets. Washington claims to “provide strong alternatives to state-directed initiatives that come with hidden strings attached”.

Siswo said such future cooperation should be discussed at the EAS, an ASEAN-led initiative that brings together the 10 ASEAN member states with Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia and the US — all of which have their own Indo-Pacific concepts.

ERIA senior communications advisor Kavi Chongkittavorn said the EAS was the key to shaping up the regional architecture amid competing major powers.

“When you have Trump, Putin and Li Keqiang in one room, you have to be a good referee,” he said. “ASEAN can’t just read statements anymore but has to actually engage its partners.”

Meanwhile, The Jakarta Post’s senior editor Endy Bayuni told Thursday’s discussion that, although there had been criticism of a lack of substance and unclear objectives in ASEAN’s Indo-Pacific concept compared to Indo-Pacific strategies from other countries, ASEAN leaders had eventually agreed on the concept precisely because of its flexibility and inclusive nature.

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