For the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the People’s Republic of China (PRC) looms large in its security calculations. China’s sheer size and geographical proximity, its huge population and ethnic outreach, its rapidly growing economic and military might, and its emergent soft power would demand ASEAN to pay a lot more attention to its formidable neighbor in the north. What has been ASEAN’s strategies in dealing with the China factor? By the turn of the century, ASEAN had already established a “strategic partnership for peace and prosperity” with China. What sort of strategic partnership is it? What are the problems and prospects of such a strategic partnership? The paper will attempt to answer these questions. While economics is part and parcel of this strategic partnership, the focus of analysis in this paper is on the security, and to a certain extent, political dimensions in the post Cold War era.