“ASEAN 3.0: Charting Economic Pathways in an Era of Adversarial Trade and Tariffs”

The ASEAN 3.0 international conference, jointly organised by the Chennai Centre for China Studies (C3S), the Centre for East Asian Studies, CHRIST (Deemed to be) University, Bengaluru, and the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), will be held on 4 February in Bengaluru. Building on the ASEAN 1.0 and 2.0 conferences, it focuses on ASEAN’s geoeconomic challenges amid rising adversarial trade, tariffs, and great-power competition. As US-China trade tensions intensify, ASEAN has emerged as a key geopolitical and economic pivot in the Asia-Pacific. Guided by ASEAN Centrality and functional multipolarity, the grouping seeks to maintain strategic autonomy by balancing relations with major powers through inclusive mechanisms such as the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum. The conference will examine the impact of adversarial trade on supply chains, the implications of the upgraded ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA 3.0), and the risks of growing economic dependence on China despite gains i…