Enhancing U.S. Influence In Southeast Asia: Proof is in The Pudding

A recent report issued by two U.S.-based institutes provides useful proposals to enhance Washington’s profile in Southeast Asia. It was prepared after careful consultations with both American and Southeast Asian experts. The proposals are sensible but the challenge lies in their implementation.  

Launched on 1 August, the report is written by a joint Task Force of the Asia Society’s Center on US-China Relations and the 21^st Century China Center of the University of California in San Diego. It stresses the critical importance of Southeast Asia to U.S. interests and its competition with China. Entitled “Prioritising Southeast Asia in U.S.-China Relations”, It notes Southeast Asia’s unwillingness to take sides in the U.S.-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 U.S. should not look at the region just through the lens of its competition with China but rather at the region’s own merits. Washington should step up its diplomacy with ASEAN and its constituent states with regular visits by important members of the U.S. Administration, including the President, and members of the U.S. Congress. America should openly welcome a multi-actor regional order rather than view it largely in bipolar U.S.-China terms and take ASEAN as an organisation seriously and not just pursue bilateral relationships. It should step up its public diplomacy in Southeast Asia because U.S. contributions are not well known in the region. The United States should also urgently increase its economic engagement by joining regional economic organisations or consider negotiating a U.S.-ASEAN free trade agreement with substantial access to the U.S. market.

It might be a difficult task for the Asia Society, together with other like-minded organisations and individuals to try to persuade members of Congress that neutrality on the part of ASEAN and its individual member states is not necessarily against U.S. interests. That said, however, an important safeguard against Chinese domination of the region is to have a strong ASEAN and strong, prosperous independent states that are determined to maintain their strategic autonomy.  

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

The recommendation that the U.S. step up its public diplomacy in Southeast Asia is understandable. The still substantial U.S. contributions in areas like education, culture and the economy are not well publicised in the region. For instance, U.S. investments in Southeast Asia far outstrip China’s, yet not many Southeast Asians know about this. Neither do many Singaporeans know that American investments provide “ tens, if not hundreds of thousands” of jobs to Singaporeans, as Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong put it in 2017 during his visit to the United States. In principle there should be no insurmountable obstacle to stepping up U.S. public diplomacy, but bureaucratic impediments, the mustering of Congressional support to speed up the appointment of good ambassadors, as well as the need for coordination over a broad front could slow down this multi-agency process.  

The recommendation for more U.S. economic engagement with the region is of crucial importance as China’s economic influence in the region has expanded rapidly. The U.S. is aware of this and has initiated the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), but this is not enough as it does not provide more access to the US market. However, an arrangement that provides more access would be difficult to implement, given the domestic mood against trade liberalisation and the hostility to it in the U.S. Congress. But the issue is so important that the Biden administration, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the U.S.-ASEAN Business Council and the think tanks in Washington should keep working on it, together with ASEAN diplomats and with any members of Congress who can be allies in this endeavour.

The recommendation for more consistent and vigorous diplomacy with regular visits and attention to Southeast Asia from the Biden Administration and Congress is laudable. Indeed the report decries the episodic and inconsistent approach of the past. However, the U.S. is a global power and crises or other imperatives for urgent attention elsewhere from the President and senior officials could still detract from attention to Southeast Asia. Traditionally, key U.S. military allies have received more attention than Southeast Asia and this can be expected to continue. So the proof of the pudding will be in the eating.

Active Congressional support for the recommendations listed above and for the overall policy of engagement outlined in the Report will be critically important for sustaining it over the longer term. Both chambers of Congress have legislators from both parties with strong anti-China dispositions. They are likely to frame other countries as being for or against the U.S., and may find it difficult to appreciate hedging or neutral behaviour. They could easily turn impatient with resources and time spent on countries which do not support the U.S. in its rivalry with China. The report is valuable in trying to break such a binary logic and advocate for a more nuanced approach.

It might be a difficult task for the Asia Society, together with other like-minded organisations and individuals to try to persuade members of Congress that neutrality on the part of ASEAN and its individual member states is not necessarily against U.S. interests. That said, however, an important safeguard against Chinese domination of the region is to have a strong ASEAN and strong, prosperous independent states that are determined to maintain their strategic autonomy.  

In conclusion, the report has good recommendations to buttress U.S. engagement and influence in Southeast Asia. If successfully implemented, they will help to achieve a better balance of great power influence and power which could be critically important for the independence and security of Southeast Asian states.

No doubt the domestic U.S. political dynamics, with all its uncertainties, will also have a major bearing on the nature of future U.S. engagement with Southeast Asia. The Biden administration’s record may not be perfect, but it should get kudos for the way it has sought to engage allies and partners in a rules-based regional order. All bets will be off if a president with erratic or isolationist tendencies is elected in 2024.

2023/202