The Inaugural ASEAN-GCC-China Summit: Economic Aspirations Amid Strategic Ambiguity
SUFIAN JUSOH & JOANNE LIN
The ASEAN-GCC-China Economic Summit, set to take place in Kuala Lumpur on 27 May, under the Malaysian Chairmanship of ASEAN, marks a significant diplomatic first. It will bring together leaders from ASEAN, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC consisting of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates), and China for a formal trilateral gathering. While ASEAN already maintains institutional relationships with both China and the GCC, this summit, initiated by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, ushers in an unusual diplomatic configuration whose long-term implications remain uncertain.
Malaysia’s bold move is underpinned by strategic calculus. By convening this trilateral platform, it aims to elevate its international profile, expand economic ties with the Middle East and China, and assert leadership within ASEAN amid a shifting global order. The declining influence of the US in the Global South, coupled with increasingly polarising US policies in the Middle East, has opened space for alternative South-South alignments. The imposition of draconian tariffs on Southeast Asian exports under Trump’s second term has further underscored the urgency for the region to diversify beyond traditional Western markets. According to Mr Anwar, “it is about ensuring ASEAN’s strategic relevance in a multipolar world”.
There are at least three rationales for the trilateral summit: promoting ASEAN Centrality, creating a new South-South economic alliance, and forming a new partnership to neutralise the geoeconomic impact of the tariff war.
First, the initiative provides an opportunity to further integrate ASEAN into the global economy and reinforce its centrality in global economic relations. It aligns with the “Global ASEAN” vision under the ASEAN Community Vision 2045 which emphasises an outward-looking ASEAN. Through partnerships with emerging Global South countries, such as China and in the GCC, ASEAN seeks to pursue joint economic benefits that go beyond traditional Dialogue Partners.
Second, the summit will provide a platform for ASEAN, the GCC and China to explore the promise of deeper economic collaboration through a trilateral framework, beyond their existing bilateral ties. While ASEAN already maintains strong trade and investment relations with both China and individual GCC states, this proposed configuration could lay the groundwork for more structured engagement across regions. According to the World Bank, the combined annual GDP of ASEAN, GCC and China amounts to US$23.70 trillion in 2023, marking 22.3 per cent of the total world GDP in the same year. ASEAN, the GCC and China also make up a large market, with combined population of ASEAN, the GCC, and China at approximately 2.15 billion people.
The trilateral summit aims to harness each other’s strengths in economic activities, especially in trade, investment and supply chains. According to Dato’ Seri Mohamad Hassan, Foreign Minister of Malaysia, the summit is a step forward in forming an influential trilateral alliance to unlock broader economic cooperation among the three parties (building on their existing bilateral ties).
The economic potential from the trilateral arrangement is huge. ASEAN-China trade was US$700 billion in 2023. In the same year, ASEAN-GCC trade was approximately US$130.7 billion, mostly in oil and gas, energy and financial services. Furthermore, the GCC-China trade was approximately US$316.4 billion in 2022. Chinese FDI into ASEAN stood at US$17.7 billion in 2023. FDI from the GCC into ASEAN grew from US$265.8 million in 2018 to US$390.2 million in 2023, mainly in wholesale and retail trade and financial services.
These present immense opportunities for further trade and investment supply-chain, as well as creating new economic opportunities and activities in areas such as clean and renewable energy, digital economy, electric vehicles, financial markets, halal products and services, and infrastructure development. However, whether this potential can be fully realised will depend on the ability of ASEAN, the GCC and China to overcome structural and regulatory differences, and to identify concrete areas for collaboration.
While the trilateral partnership does not entail a new formal trade agreement at this stage, it could explore synergies by building on existing frameworks. For instance, existing agreements such as the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area (ACFTA) and the Regional Cooperation Economic Partnership (RCEP), could serve as useful reference points. While the GCC is not a party to these frameworks, the trilateral partnership may draw lessons from their structures and standards—such as in rules of origin, e-commerce and investment facilitation— as potential models for future cooperation between ASEAN-GCC and GCC-China.
Third, the trilateral summit could potentially assist in countering export restrictions and additional tariffs implemented by the US, through the creation of new markets for ASEAN products and services and providing opportunities to access technologies which the US may restrict. This provides ASEAN, which sees itself as a middle power, to leverage on the GCC and China to collaborate with and function as a counterweight to other major powers.
The growing ASEAN trade with China and the United States makes ASEAN vulnerable to the geopolitical tensions between the two major powers. At the same time, the GCC has been working on a new foreign policy approach, allowing the grouping to work with countries and regions with impressive economic growth, looking for regions with surging energy demand, whilst reducing the GCC dependency on the West. In this regard, the GCC has been expanding its economic foreign policy to focus on new partners in Eastern Asia, i.e. to include ASEAN and China. It has been observed that, despite its close geo-political and geo-economic relations with the West, the GCC has continuously built selective economic relations with China.
The summit also provides an avenue for a new coalition of countries supporting a strong multilateral economic order under the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The intra-grouping consensus building involving two major regional economic groupings and the second largest economy in the world can provide an avenue to balance and hedge against an uncertain and challenging world economic order, particularly, the uncertainty surrounding US economic policies under the second Trump’s presidency including tariffs, export restrictions and unilateral trade measures.
Nevertheless, ASEAN must be mindful that the GCC is neither a supranational entity like the EU nor a charter-based organisation like ASEAN. It is a loose coalition where members are free to pursue their own external relations. Internal divisions—such as the Saudi-UAE rivalry, differing positions on the Gaza conflict, and the 2017 Qatar Crisis—underscore the bloc’s fragility.
From a functional perspective, areas as mentioned above present promising ground for trilateral collaboration. However, translating these opportunities into actionable outcomes will require clear frameworks, institutional follow-up, and genuine alignment of priorities. Furthermore, although bilateral ties between individual ASEAN countries—such as Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia—and GCC members, particularly the UAE, have flourished in sectors such as energy, construction, infrastructure, telecoms, tourism and banking, ASEAN-GCC cooperation between the two regional groupings remains relatively underdeveloped. It was only in 2023 that ASEAN and GCC convened their first summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, with both sides agreeing to meet biennially.
China, for its part, has expressed willingness to “deepen mutually beneficial cooperation” with ASEAN and GCC countries at the summit. However, it has yet to publicly confirm its level of representation or outline any substantive deliverables. This measured and cautious stance suggests that while the initiative aligns with China’s broader interest in advancing Global South cooperation, its engagement will likely depend on the clarity of the summit’s agenda and how it serves China’s longer-term regional objectives.
For ASEAN, China’s inclusion may enhance the platform’s diplomatic and economic weight, but it also brings added complexity, particularly in terms of geopolitical signaling and institutional coordination. As global rivalries intensify and minilateral arrangements proliferate, ASEAN will need to ensure that this summit complements, rather than competes with its existing frameworks, such as the ASEAN Plus Three and the East Asia Summit, to maintain coherence and regional unity.
While the future of this trilateral format remains uncertain—whether it will be one-off or evolve into a regular fixture—its success hinges on how it is positioned within ASEAN’s broader strategic agenda.
Ultimately, the ASEAN-GCC-China Summit should not be viewed as a geopolitical pivot, but a pragmatic platform for advancing economic and functional cooperation across two dynamic regions. If carefully managed, it could serve as a vital bridge between Southeast Asia, the Middle East and China—expanding ASEAN’s economic reach in an increasingly multipolar world. This vision reflects the spirit of Malaysia’s 2025 ASEAN Chairmanship: to strengthen ASEAN’s relevance, broaden its partnerships and amplify its voice within the Global South.
This article was first published in the Fulcrum.
SUFIAN JUSOH is the Director and Professor of International Trade and Investment at the Institute of Malaysian and International Studies (IKMAS UKM), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. Sufian leads a team of IKMAS experts supporting Malaysia’s ASEAN Chairmanship 2025. Sufian was a Malaysian delegate to the ASEAN High-Level Task Force for the ASEAN Community Vision (HLTF ACV).
JOANNE LIN is a Senior Fellow and Co-coordinator of the ASEAN Studies Centre at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute.