Southeast Asia Is Starting to Choose: Why the Region Is Leaning Toward China
Illustration by Deena So’oteh
In an article by Foreign Affairs, Yuen Foong Khong and Joseph Chinyong Liow assert that Southeast Asian countries are increasingly leaning towards China amid the U.S.-Chinese rivalry. The conditions are different from the Cold War in that China has become an increasingly strong competitor with the United States.
Even as Beijing and Washington have made their rivalry the dominant fact of global geopolitics, officials in the region repeat the mantra that they can be friends to all. Of course, they are not oblivious to the changing geopolitical reality. As Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong put it in 2018, “I think it is very desirable for us not to have to take sides, but the circumstances may come where ASEAN [the Association of Southeast Asian Nations] may have to choose one or the other. I hope it does not happen soon.”
Lee’s assessment of this predicament is representative of the views of not only most Southeast Asian countries but also much of the world. It reflects a profound consternation about the imperatives of the overarching superpower competition. A country such as Singapore, after all, has thrived in the era of globalization, styling itself as an entrepôt with its doors open to the world. Vietnam, an ostensibly communist dictatorship, has made itself into an important hub of global manufacturing that is plugged in to both Chinese and Western supply chains. The vast archipelago nations of Indonesia and the Philippines, once racked by internal conflicts, have seen their GDPs grow significantly since 2000. When Southeast Asian officials push back on the idea that they have to pick sides, they are in effect expressing their preference for the global order that prevailed after the end of the Cold War, one characterized by thickening economic connections and diminishing geopolitical contestation.
In the wake of the 2008–9 financial crisis, that order began to evaporate. Southeast Asia now finds itself in the midst of great-power competition. China and the United States are increasingly at loggerheads in Asia. And Southeast Asian countries, whether they like it or not, are no longer immune to the pressures that accompany great-power competition. By analyzing the positions of ten Southeast Asian countries on a welter of issues relating to China and the United States, one thing becomes evident: over the past 30 years, many of these countries have gradually but discernibly shifted away from the United States and toward China. Some shifts are more drastic and significant than others. A few countries have indeed managed to “hedge,” to straddle the rift between two superpowers. The overall direction of travel, however, is clear. Southeast Asian countries may insist that they are staying above the fray, but their policies reveal otherwise. The region is drifting toward China, a fact that bodes ill for American ambitions in Asia.
