ASEAN Ministers Meet in Manila Amid U.S.-Iran Conflict, Myanmar War, and South China Sea Tensions

Foreign ministers from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations convened in Manila on Tuesday, July 21, 2026, for meetings that opened under the shadow of renewed open conflict between the United States and Iran, prompting concerns over energy supplies through the Strait of Hormuz as well as inflation and global growth, according to Rappler.

Philippine spokesperson Dominic Xavier Imperial said the topic would likely surface at several points during the sessions. The ministers planned an informal consultation on Myanmar, where a military coup five years earlier triggered a civil war that has killed an estimated 100,000 people.

ASEAN launched a peace initiative after the coup, but the effort has struggled to gain traction. Maritime tensions featured prominently after the Philippines accused China's Coast Guard of striking a Philippine navy sailor on the head with a baton near Second Thomas Shoal on Monday.

China's Coast Guard called the account false, while the US State Department described the actions as dangerous and aggressive and part of a troubling pattern of provocation.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrived in Manila on Tuesday and published an opinion piece in Philippine newspapers that reaffirmed American commitment to freedom of navigation. "If those waters fall under the control of a power willing to use commerce as a geopolitical weapon, both the United States and the ASEAN states would face dire new threats to their sovereignty, security and economic futures," Rubio wrote.

He added that the 2016 arbitral ruling invalidating China's sweeping sovereignty claims remained final and binding.