Following the Official Launch Ceremony on 5 September 2019, the ISC had the privilege to welcome Associate Professor Simon Tay, a prominent independent scholar and Chairman of Singapore Institute of International Affairs, as its first guest speaker. Associate Professor Simon Tay delivered a lecture on “ASEAN Centrality and Regional Balance in a Time of Sino-American Tensions: What Can Be Done?”*. Following an analysis of the on-going tensions between China and the U.S, he assessed the impact that these tensions were having on ASEAN countries and the region as a whole. Then, moving beyond the current trade war, he highlighted the importance of maintaining ASEAN centrality, particularly in view of such initiatives as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Indo-Pacific, and stressed the importance of ASEAN maintaining its integrity and sovereignty by having common stance without taking sides with any major power.