The west seem to unable to comprehent that people of Southeast Asia aren’t interest in any SEATO style treaty (yes, they tried this before) so much that the formation of ASEAN were made with the sheer, explicit intend of not being a SEATO-style treaty to prevent the kind of disaster that happened back during the Cold War.
That have the same energy as “He’s a vegan in every single way excluding not eathing animal products.”