How ASEAN has helped in peacekeeping

Over the past four decades, ASEAN has managed to contain historical animosities among the members and minimize frictions. It has succeeded in bringing together major political rivals in the region – Japan and China and India and China.
The second reality is the rise of a new sense of Asian identity, forged during the financial crisis in 1997 when the region felt abandoned by the US and ill-served by international institutions like the IMF. Asean has helped grow this new regionalism but moderated it so as not to exclude the US and allow the rise of a regional hegemony. This helps to bond the countries together and to maintain peace.
In this period, Asean has been the only entity able to bring together consistently the giants of Northeast Asia – China, Japan and South Korea -- in the ASEAN+3 meeting. It is also Asean that has reached out to the wider East Asian Summit to include Australia, New Zealand and India, which is often seen as a hedge against Chinese domination.
Recognizing the organization’s importance, China has sought to improve its relations with the region by working through the organization. It has sought to sooth the regional anxiety over its contentious claim to the South China Sea by signing a code of conduct in 2002. Although the territorial claims remain unresolved, the code has managed to maintain peace.