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US-Asean relations
This Week in AsiaOpinion
Daljit Singh
Daljit Singh

Asian Angle | US should step up diplomacy in Southeast Asia amid China’s growing economic influence

  • As China’s economic influence grows, the US needs to take Asean more seriously with regular visits by top officials including Biden
  • It also needs to offer wider access to the US market, and understand that a vital safeguard against Chinese domination of the region is a strong Asean

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US President Joe Biden poses for a group photograph with Asean leaders during a special US-Asean summit at the White House in May last year. Photo: Reuters
Daljit Singh
A report issued earlier this month by two US-based institutes provides useful proposals to enhance Washington’s profile in Southeast Asia.
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Written by a joint task force of the Asia Society’s Centre on US-China relations and the 21st Century China Centrre of the University of California in San Diego, the report was prepared and launched on August 1 after careful consultations with both American and Southeast Asian experts. The proposals it makes are sensible but the challenge lies in their implementation.

It stresses the critical importance of Southeast Asia to US interests and its competition with China. Entitled “Prioritising Southeast Asia in US-China Relations”, it notes the region’s unwillingness to take sides in the US-China rivalry. This is understandable: China is a superpower, and the region benefits from economic cooperation with Beijing, especially in trade and infrastructure development.

The recommendations of the report are sound. One of them is that the United States should not look at the region just through the lens of competition with China but rather on its own merits.
Washington should step up diplomacy with Asean and its constituent states with regular visits by important members of the US administration, including the president, and members of the US Congress. America should openly welcome a multi-actor regional order rather than view it largely in bipolar US-China terms, take the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as an organisation seriously and not just pursue bilateral relationships.

It should step up its public diplomacy in Southeast Asia because US contributions are not well known in the region. The US should also urgently increase its economic engagement by joining regional organisations or consider negotiating a US-Asean free-trade agreement with substantial access to the American market.

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These are all sensible proposals that would enhance the US’ profile and influence in Southeast Asia – if implemented successfully – and thereby help to maintain a balance of great power influence in the region.

From left: leaders of the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, US, Cambodia, Indonesia, Brunei and Laos with Malaysia’s lower house speaker at last year’s Asean-US summit in Phnom Penh. Photo: AFP
From left: leaders of the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, US, Cambodia, Indonesia, Brunei and Laos with Malaysia’s lower house speaker at last year’s Asean-US summit in Phnom Penh. Photo: AFP
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