The Belt and Road Initiative（B&R）was launched in September 2013 by President Xi Jinping in Kazakhstan as regards the mainland area and in October 2013 in Indonesia as regards the maritime area. This is by far the largest project of interconnection between Asia，Europe and Africa that will last for decades，entail vast amounts of resources and involve a large multilateral collaboration. Its realisation will boost national economies，above all China’s，with an additional stimulus provided by new facilities for international trade. The B&R Initiative is the most widely-promoted initiative but is not the only one. The Republic of Korea（ROK），India and Japan have announced their own infrastructure initiative. The implementation of all these initiatives may potentially create a complex Asian landscape not unlike the famous “noodle soup effect” stemming from the proliferation of free trade agreements in the Asia-Pacific. This leaves a priori ASEAN，which has its own “ASEAN Master Plan for Connectivity”（AMPC），in a rather positive situation since it would have the choice between different solutions to remove the infrastructure bottlenecks which are hampering its growth and trade. However，this depends on ASEAN’s capacity to assert its centrality in Asia which implies that ASEAN stayed united and speaks with one voice. Given the nature of ASEAN，maintaining unity is anything but certain：ASEAN is an intergovernmental association which takes decisions when a consensus is reached and implement them only when it is in each ASEAN member state’s（AMS）interest. This is especially the case because of the asymmetric relations between China and ASEAN. Since 2009，China is the largest customer of ASEAN but ASEAN is only the third largest trading customer of China. At the country level，bilateral relations between China and AMS are even more unbalanced. In these circumstances，the risk is that the B&R Initiative may deepen existing divides for instance，between mainland ASEAN and maritime ASEAN，while the purpose of connectivity is precisely to alleviate them. This paper will analyse these issues and explore the solutions to achieve a synergy between China’s B&R Initiative and AMPC. Section 1 summarises ASEAN’s connectivity needs and challenges. Section 2 focuses on the possible synergy between AMPC and the B&R Initiative. Section 3 broadens the point view by including the alternative infrastructure initiatives and concludes that rivalry between Asia’s superpowers may be the surest way to achieve synergy.