The majority of foreign policy initiatives have followed the “ASEAN way” of consultation and consensus seeking, but several observations raise further doubts about identity-based explanations of co-operation. Firstly, not even in half of those cases did a consensus emerge without substantial negotiations(1). Cases include ASEAN’s communiques after Vietnamese military actions in 1979 and 1980, the initiation of the “cocktail talks”, and the informal South China Sea workshop. Furthermore, on serious disagreement seemed to have stymied ASEAN responses to Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea in 1995 and 1997. The “cocktail talks” and the workshops did not entail any commitment. The other cases signify that ASEAN leaders shared the conviction that the norms of regional conduct, enshrined in the TAC, should be defended. A second area of unanimous agreement, the vision of a united Southeast Asia, became manifest when ASEAN leaders reached consensus to admit in-principle the Indochina states and Myanmar, but that is where the commonalities end. The exact modalities initially eluded a consensus.