The ASEAN-US Special Summit kicks off in Washington, DC on Thursday, ripe with the opportunity for ASEAN to reiterate its centrality in the global Indo-Pacific strategy, and for the US to showcase its support for a collective that is engaging more closely with China.

The event, initially scheduled from March 28-29, will be hosted by Biden, as part of his multipronged foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific region, which is mostly geared toward wresting away the spotlight from Beijing. However, the summit was delayed because several of the leaders were unable to participate due to COVID-19 restrictions, according to the group’s current chair Cambodia.

The last time an event of its kind was staged was in California in February 2016, about a year before Donald Trump took office as US president and at the tail end of his predecessor Barack Obama’s Pivot to Asia. Jokowi was also present at that summit.

The two sides are expected to discuss ways to intensify cooperation in areas as varied as the pandemic response and overall global health security, climate change, sustainable development and human capital development, as well as connectivity and economic engagement.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Teuku Faizasyah said that these issues had previously been highlighted by Cambodia in a statement ahead of the summit.

“Both sides will also have a dialogue on regional and global issues that have become a common concern,” Faizasyah told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.