In November, Indonesia will host the East Asia Summit, which the Association of South East Asian Nations hopes will become the forum for managing the region's economic opportunities and strategic tensions.
USA President Obama will attend the summit for the first time, along with China, Russia, Japan, India, South Korea and Australia, as well as the nations of South East Asia.
To give the agenda some muscle, senior ministers from some of Asia's strongest economies have been meeting in Indonesia. The Australia Network's Indonesia Correspondent, Helen Brown, reported from Manado in Sulawesi