For China, the implications of the conflict in Iran extend far beyond a mere energy shock; it represents a veritable watershed moment.

Climate change is transforming the South China Sea into a human security frontier, displacing vulnerable coastal communities and driving irregular maritime movement across borders. ASEAN’s current maritime governance overlooks climate mobility and integrating it into regional rules and institutions is essential to prevent escalating humanitarian crises from devolving into strategic instability.

Grey-zone friction over fisheries and maritime access currently poses the greatest risk of escalation in the South China Sea. Southeast Asian states should prioritise technology-enabled, issue-specific maritime governance and selectively partner with non-escalatory external actors, like the European Union (EU), to strengthen surveillance and enforcement capacity without attempting to resolve sovereignty disputes.

Henry Kissinger, the late US secretary of state, once reportedly remarked that “to be an enemy of America would be dangerous, to be a friend would be fatal”. That observation, while made in the context of America’s allies in the Vietnam War, has gained fresh resonance at the recently concluded Munich Security Conference, where current Secretary of State Marco Rubio artfully delivered a message that was, to all intents and purposes, an iron fist in a velvet glove.