FROM THE CENTRE TO THE MARGINS
Since the end of the Vietnam War, the United States has been remarkably consistent and successful as an offshore balancer in Southeast Asia, maintaining the stability of the region and preventing it from falling under the sway of any hegemonic power. But times have changed.
Although China is a formidable competitor, it does not pose the same type of existential threat to the United States as the Soviet Union did during the Cold War. There is thus no longer any reason for Americans to bear any burden or pay any price to maintain order. ASEAN needs to better understand that US priorities now revolve around domestic issues more than in previous periods.
Washington, therefore, expects its partners and allies to carry more of the costs of maintaining order. ASEAN need not do everything the Biden administration may ask of it, but ASEAN urgently needs to discuss the parameters of what it is prepared to do – and equally important, what it is not prepared to do – with the United States to meet the common challenge of China.
In the absence of such clarity, the Biden administration will still politely call ASEAN “central” and attend its meetings, but Washington will in fact place much more emphasis on other partnerships, such as the Quad, and on particular bilateral relationships in Southeast Asia.
If the United States does not prioritise ASEAN, the diminished value of the regional body may cause China, too, to take it for granted, and it will lose leverage with both powers.
ASEAN and its members must better understand that strong relations with the United States are not an alternative to close relations with China but the necessary condition for such ties.
ASEAN imagines itself at the centre of the geopolitical competition in Southeast Asia, but it could well find itself on the margins, no longer a major actor in its own arena.
Bilahari Kausikan is former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore. Used with permission of Foreign Affairs, from “Threading the Needle in Southeast Asia” by Bilahari Kausikan, May 11, 2022;permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.
Your post on Magazine (https://Artmotion.com)
