The leaders of Southeast Asian nations will gather at the Sunnylands Centre in California on Monday (Feb 15) for the US-ASEAN Leaders Summit.
The two-day meeting is the first hosted by the United States for ASEAN leaders and comes on the back of US President Barack Obama's visit to Southeast Asia in November. Ties between the US and ASEAN have never been closer - although the relationship has not been without its challenges.
In 2014, President Obama became the first American head of state to visit Malaysia in almost half a century. The following year, he followed that up with another visit to Kuala Lumpur for the East Asia Summit.
To have a US President visit a Southeast Asian country more than once in such a short period of time was unprecedented - and a reflection of Washington's determination to forge closer ties with the region.
This may be due in part to the ongoing battle for global influence between the United States and China, as both have clashed over Beijing's programme of reclamation and construction on disputed islands in the South China Sea.
Washington is concerned that Beijing's actions in the area will threaten freedom of navigation. But rival claimants to the islands, among them ASEAN nations Vietnam and the Philippines, see the conflict between the US and China, as beneficial.
"For countries that are at the frontline of confronting China in the South China Sea - like the Philippines and Vietnam - they want to have closer ties with the US in order to balance out the perceived threats coming out of Beijing,” said Ibrahim Suffian, Director, Merdeka Centre for Opinion Research.
“Countries like Myanmar - as they transit from authoritarian rule to democracy - also want to balance out the overly large Chinese economic influence with an increased presence of American and Western business interests."
Trade has also been a significant catalyst for closer US-ASEAN ties. The United States is ASEAN's third largest trading partner, with trade totalling US$241.7 billion in 2013.
Economic ties in spotlight
These economic ties will be in the spotlight at the Sunnylands summit. Business leaders say it will be a good platform to introduce the US to the ASEAN Economic Community - a plan for regional economic integration launched at the end of 2015.
"At this point, we keep saying that while ASEAN itself is a challenge because it has a combination of 10 different countries, languages and so on,” said Ezani Mansor, US-ASEAN Business Council of Malaysia.
“So trade then becomes the galvanising factor; we want to trade with the rest of the world and the largest partner is the US. So that's why we see the need to have stronger business ties on the other side of the world."
But the relationship is not without its challenges. In Malaysia, the country coordinator for US-ASEAN ties, there have been open protests against America's influence on the nation.
In particular, indigenous rights groups and activists have been unhappy with Malaysia's participation in the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The TPP is a US-led trade agreement involving 12 Pacific-Rim nations, including four ASEAN states.
President Obama has also been criticised for supposedly overlooking human rights and trafficking concerns in participating countries like Malaysia in order to push forward with the TPP deal.
Analysts say the level of scrutiny could change, depending on who Americans elect as their new President in the coming polls. But given all it has to gain from the relationship, US interest in ASEAN is unlikely to wane no matter who is at the helm - and Southeast Asia looks poised to roll out the welcome mat, for now.
(Channel News Asia)
