冷戰結束之後，中共與東南亞國協（東協）的關係漸入佳境，雙方經貿發展亦突飛猛進，在以東協為基礎的各區域組織及多邊對話中，雙方亦能和平相處；但是在某些政治議題上，雙方尚未能尋得一致的共識，所以其政治上的互動實際上是正面和負面的行為模式並存。本文之主要目的便在於嘗試藉著新一代新現實主義的觀點來研究冷戰後中共與東協政治安全合作機制之建立及發展。本文自研究區域體系變動與中共和東協各自內部因素（包括對自身安全威脅的認知）影響的角色來研析中共與東協在冷戰後政治合作的發展。由於雙方在南海主權爭端的處理上歧見仍深，再加上雙方各自內部決策制定之過程亦在某種程度上限制了雙方在政治安全合作上的發展，因此，目下中共與東協政治合作的焦點還是放在信心安全建立的階段。在可預見的未來，國際環境會使中共與東協繼續朝避免衝突的道路走下去，但是，主要由於中共與東協各自的內部因素（包括對主權還有自身安全環境的認知）對於決策的影響，雙方之間的政治合作恐難有突破性的進展。

　　　　　After the Cold War, relations between the PRC and the Association for South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) have improved, and the PRC has been in harmony with ASEAN in ASEAN-based regional organizations and multilateral dialogues. Nonetheless, on some political issues, both sides have not been able to reach consensus. This denotes the co-existence of positive and negative patterns of behavior in PRC-ASEAN political interactions. By means of the latest development of neorealism, this essay attempts to study the formation and development of PRC-ASEAN political cooperation mechanisms in the aftermath of the Cold War. Changes in the regional system and the impact of the PRC's and ASEAN's internal factors (including their perceptions of security threats) are the major independent variables in this essay. Both because the PRC and ASEAN have salient disagreement on the South China Sea dispute and because the internal factors of their own limit the development of PRC-ASEAN cooperation in political security, the current focal point of PRC-ASEAN political cooperation is confidence and security building. In the foreseeable future, international influences will make both the PRC and ASEAN try to avoid mutual conflict, but there may not be major breakthroughs in PRC-ASEAN political cooperation on account of their respective internal factors such as the insistence on national territorial sovereignty and the perceptions of the security environments.