Abstract
The reason of ASEAN’s rising dominance in the regional order was the fact that the association had been enlarging its institutional activities within the region and expanding new policy areas. However, recent challenge that cast doubt on the association’s status of a central player in the region of Asia-Pacific has come in the form of China’s rise. There is no reverse logic to existing cooperation theories that explain the reasons why minor states want to pull together their powers. In this article, the authors come to a conclusion that the specific form of the association’s regionalism not only lacks some degree of capacity but also is a result of the weak countries’ cooperation. A number of different studies show that the ASEAN’s effectiveness is limited in the context of becoming a security organization. The analysis of the association’ actions demonstrates that the powers of a single strong entity can easily push ASEAN to the second place