Re-ordering the World: China’s Global South Focus versus the Ally-centric Approach of the US

INTRODUCTION

Speaking at Johns Hopkins University in 2023, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared that the post-Cold War order was over. The statement underscores a pivotal shift in the American liberal elite’s thinking about the world order, signalling that the US – the principal architect and guarantor of the modern international system – is fundamentally recalibrating its worldview and strategic approach to address new global realities. Meanwhile, China under President Xi Jinping has intensified its efforts to “lead the reform of the global governance system” towards what it upholds as “true multilateralism”. As both superpowers seek to re-order the world, institutional balancing has become a key strategy in their competition. This involves their respective efforts of creation, expansion, adaptation and/or co-option of international institutions, resulting in an increasingly fragmented and contested global system.

This article examines the different approaches taken by the US and China in utilising their institutional networks to advance their strategic agenda, and positions Southeast Asian countries amid these competing frameworks. China focuses on amassing numerical dominance in multilateral institutions, rallying the Global South to tip the scales against the West. The US, in contrast, seeks more compact, tightly knit groupings with its allies and select partners, based on their strategic cohesion, political alignment, economic-technological capabilities, and a shared perception of the China challenge/threat. The article uses “institutional balancing” as the analytical framework, which is defined as a “soft balancing behaviour” that rivalling states employ through international institutions. This can be done by either expanding or deepening their networks within existing institutions or creating new ones to counterbalance the other and enhance their respective influence.

CHINA’S APPROACH: THE MORE THE MERRIER

China’s strategy can be described as “big-number institutional balancing” through three pathways: (i) leveraging large, broad-based multilateral organisations, particularly the UN and those involving Global South countries; (ii) creating a China-centric hub-and-spokes model with global reach (as exemplified by the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which involves agreements with over 150 countries concerning Chinese-financed infrastructure development); and (iii) establishing new or expanding existing platforms, e.g. BRICS, to rally the developing world in support of China’s global governance reform agenda. In these pathways, China’s key focus is developing countries where it exerts significant and growing economic and diplomatic influence. These nations share China’s aspiration for a multipolar world and harbour certain grievances against Western countries’ dominance in the post-World War II international system.

The focus on the Global South in China’s foreign policy has been increasingly salient in the past decade, amid China’s growing estrangement from the West. Global South countries have become vital economic partners as well as indispensable constituencies and normative allies in China’s efforts to construct a more pro-China and less West-centric global system. China’s mobilisation of Global South support in multilateral institutions is also in line with its foreign policy’s strategic layout, which views “big powers as the key, China’s periphery as the priority, developing countries as the foundation, and multilateral platforms as the stage”. Another structural factor driving China’s outreach to the Global South is its lack of a global alliance system like the US’, a result of both China’s historical experiences and a strategic choice of its statecraft to ensure maximum flexibility, pragmatism and freedom of action.

The “big-number” approach builds upon China’s increasing investment in the UN with its 193 members, the majority of which are developing nations. China has steadily built up its influence by appointing Chinese nationals to leadership positions in UN agencies. The number of Chinese nationals working at the UN increased almost twofold, from 794 in 2009 to 1,564 in 2022. Since 2019, China has surpassed Japan as the second-largest financial contributor to the UN’s regular budget. The share of China’s assessed contributions to all UN agencies tripled in the past decade, increasing from 4.8% of total government donor contributions in 2013 to 14.9% in 2022. China has also bolstered South-South cooperation within the UN through initiatives such as by providing additional funding to upgrade the South-South Cooperation Assistance Fund to the Global Development and South-South Cooperation Fund; forming the Group of Friends of China’s Global Development Initiative (GDI), with over 80 participating countries; and expanding the China South-South Cooperation Network with the participation of 50 technical committees.

Similarly, through its participation in the ‘G77 plus China’ – a coalition of 134 developing nations – China actively positions itself as the voice and leader of the Global South. The grouping advocates for reforms in global governance and promotes state-centric norms and values that align with Chinese interests, such as political sovereignty, opposition to external interference, and prioritising national development over individual rights. The platform has been instrumental for China to forge normative solidarity with many developing nations which desire a greater say and influence in global governance. Despite its status as an upper-middle-income country, China’s voting patterns at the UN remain closely aligned with those of the G77, rather than with high-income countries.

In recent years, the BRICS has also become increasingly salient in China’s institutional balancing strategy. Originally composed of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa as a coalition of major emerging economies focused on development and economic coordination, the grouping recently expanded to include Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates. Over 40 countries have expressed interest in joining BRICS, driven by the expectations that this platform would amplify their role in global governance and diversify their economic relationships. Admittedly, with more potential members and no clear admission criteria, the geopolitical incoherence within BRICS will only deepen. However, this has not stopped China from leveraging BRICS as both a discursive tool to challenge Western influence and a useful platform to push certain geo-economic agenda such as de-dollarisation in international trade and finance, and technological integration with the Global South, for example through the BRICS Remote Sensing Satellite Virtual Constellation.

By leveraging the numerical strength of large multilateral platforms, China has amplified its geopolitical narrative, embedded its ideological frameworks into the broader international system, and secured diplomatic and political backing from developing countries for its global initiatives.

By leveraging the numerical strength of large multilateral platforms, China has amplified its geopolitical narrative, embedded its ideological frameworks into the broader international system, and secured diplomatic and political backing from developing countries for its global initiatives. For example, China has successfully inserted the concept of a “Community of Shared Future” into G77 documents and UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolutions, substantiating its claim of the concept’s global reach. The size of these large, inclusive platforms also allows China to shape a narrative that positions the Majority “Rest” against the Minority “West”, undermining the legitimacy of West-centric elements within the global system.

However, these expansive groups are inherently diverse and lack coherence in their strategic orientations. The heterogeneities and inconsistencies within such platforms make it challenging for China to cultivate in-depth, focused collaborations or large-scale coordinated actions and aligned policies on specific issues. Therefore, China’s focus in these platforms is to embed its strategic messaging into their political statements and agenda, using their collective weight to enhance the international legitimacy of Chinese approaches to international relations. Meanwhile, bilateral engagements, especially those that are scaled up into multi-bilateral networks like the BRI, remain China’s preferred and most effective strategy for cultivating deep relationships with other nations, ensuring mutual economic integration and policy alignment while giving China greater control and influence over the terms of engagement.

Table 1: China and Global South-Focused Mechanisms

	Institutions	Membership	Year of Establishment
1	Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative	Over 80 countries	2021
2	Belt and Road Initiative	151 countries	2013
3	Group of 77 and China	134 countries	1964
4	BRICS	9 members and over 40 countries interested to join	2009
5	Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC)	53 African countries, the African Union, China	2000
6	China-Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) Forum	33 Latin American/Caribbean countries, China	2014
7	China-Arab States Cooperation Forum (CASCF)	22 Arab states, China	2004
8	Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) – 10 members states, two Observers and 14 Dialogue Partners	China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Iran (joined 2023), Belarus (joined 2024)	2001

THE US: THE SELECT FEW FOR STRATEGIC EDGE

The Biden administration’s relationship with multilateralism is more nuanced and complicated than its two immediate predecessors, reflecting neither the stark rejection of the Trump era nor the idealistic embrace during Obama’s time. To its credit, the Biden administration re-engaged the UN system after four years of Trump’s retreat, rejoining the Human Rights Council, the World Health Organization, and the Paris Agreement. The US remains the largest funder of the UN’s regular budget, and also the single largest financial contributor to the entire UN system, with its share increasing from 23.5% in 2013 to 33.7% in 2022, whereas China’s contributions remain modest at 3.9%. Washington also supports its nationals competing for employment across the UN system, especially in UN agencies’ key positions. There are currently 5,642 American personnel working in the UN system, or 4.5% of the UN’s total staff, compared to China’s 1,564 (1.2%).

The Biden administration has also mobilised the UN for certain development and security agendas, including global health, food security, climate change, non-proliferation, and opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In March 2022, it rallied 141 countries to vote for the UNGA resolution condemning Russia’s aggression. On the development front, the US is the largest donor to the UN-backed COVAX initiative on delivering COVID-19 vaccines to developing countries, contributing US$4 billion versus China’s US$100 million. Additionally, the US spearheaded the 2022 Roadmap for Global Food Security–Call to Action, which mobilised over 100 countries on food security action.

Despite the Biden administration’s renewed commitment to multilateral engagement in contrast to the Trump era, traditional broad-based multilateral institutions are not central to advancing the two primary objectives of its foreign policy and national security, namely: (i) reshaping global rules in technology, trade and economics to reindustrialise the American economy; and (ii) balancing against China’s power and influence particularly in the Indo-Pacific. Instead, the administration has prioritised more focused strategic coalitions, alongside domestic unilateral actions, to achieve these objectives.

On trade, the administration has decisively shifted US policy towards disengagement from the global multilateral trading system, which it views as ill-equipped to address the challenges of economic competition from China. Washington continues to block the appointment of new judges to the WTO Appellate Body, effectively paralysing its dispute settlement mechanism, upholds the tariffs on China from the Trump administration, and imposes tariff hikes on a range of Chinese high-tech and green-tech products. As National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan declared, the US’ new approach to international economic policymaking is a break from the past, no longer viewing “trade liberalisation as an end in itself”.

In parallel, the Biden administration embraces a deeply protectionist industrial policy, exemplified by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the CHIPS and Science Act, which allocate significant subsidies to domestic industries and foreign investments in areas like clean energy, electric vehicles, and semiconductors. This shift marks a departure from traditional free-trade orthodoxy, with the American government now assuming an activist role in fostering national industrial development. These legislations aim to reshore critical supply chains, reduce dependency on foreign imports, especially from China, and revitalise US competitiveness in strategic sectors. The focus has shifted from economic efficiency and free capital flows to a new objective, as declared by President Biden: “The supply chain for America begins in America”. 

On the external front, the US has committed to pursuing “modern trade agreements” that depart from liberalisation as the core principle and emphasise economic security through partnerships with allied and like-minded nations. This shift is exemplified by the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) initiative involving 14 countries. IPEF does not deal with market access, focusing instead on strategic economic collaboration in new sectors among its members and supply chain resilience through friendshoring and near-shoring.

On the technology front, the US has forged alignment with its allies to contain China’s technological rise. The 2022 National Security Strategy commits to investing in an “allied techno-industrial base” and “rallying like-minded actors” to build a tech ecosystem that safeguard their “shared security, prosperity and values”. At the heart of this strategy are US efforts to persuade – and also pressure – allies to join US export controls against China in cutting-edge technologies, especially semiconductors. This has given rise to informal groups such as Chip 4 Alliance, or a deal with Japan and the Netherlands to restrict China’s access to advanced chip-making equipment. Collaboration on critical and emerging technologies is also a priority within formal coalitions such as the Quad and AUKUS (pillar 2). In Europe, the US has set up a joint trade and technology council with the EU to “foster transatlantic coordination on semiconductor and critical mineral supply chains”. Beyond the strategic and economic objectives of maintaining US and allied technology leadership, these efforts are also framed in ideological terms, such as safeguarding human rights and privacy. The exclusivity of these frameworks is thus manifest in their select membership as well as their geopolitical and normative underpinnings, which implicitly cast China as theobject of their struggle.

In security, the Biden administration has arguably made its most significant strides by rallying allies and select partners through a range of minilateral coalitions designed to counterbalance Chinese power and influence. This goes beyond consolidating US bilateral alliances in Asia with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Australia. It actively seeks to integrate these allies into emerging plurilateral coalitions, with or without direct US involvement. Various security initiatives are advancing among these allies and partners to enhance their interoperability and defence capabilities, including ministerial defence dialogues, joint patrols, military exercises, defence industrial cooperation, reciprocal access agreements, arms transfers, and maritime capacity-building. Other hallmarks of the US’ minilateral approach are the Biden administration’s efforts to institutionalise the Quad—elevating it to the Summit level with dedicated Working Groups—and the establishment of AUKUS, the trilateral defence pact between Australia, the UK, and the US.

While these coalitions are not monolithic – each member has varying degrees of economic interdependence with China and differing views on the extent and scope of hard balancing against China—they share three overall characteristics: (i) they are US allies or non-allied countries with significant strategic weight and capabilities, such as India; (ii) they share security concerns over China’s assertiveness, particularly those that have land and maritime border disputes with China such as India, Japan, and the Philippines; and (iii) most are democracies that often align with the US, at least rhetorically, in framing their cooperation as important for the preservation of democratic values, coded as “a free and open Indo-Pacific”. US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin terms this growing strategic alignment as “the new convergence in the Indo-Pacific”, which he describes as “a set of overlapping and complementary initiatives and institutions, propelled by a shared vision and a shared sense of mutual obligation”.

Table 2: The US and Ally-Focused Mechanisms

	Institution	Membership	Year of Establishment
1	Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF)	Australia, Brunei, Fiji, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, US, Vietnam	2022
2	Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI)	G7 countries	2022
3	US-EU Trade and Technology Council	US-EU	2021
4	Chip 4 Alliance	Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, US	2022
5	Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group (within Quad)	Australia, India, Japan, US	2021
6	Critical Minerals Mapping Initiative (CMMI)	Australia, Canada, US	2019
7	Minerals Security Partnership	Australia, Canada, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Norway, South Korea, Sweden, US, US, EU	2022
8	I2U2 Group	India, Israel, UAE, US	2022
9	Quad (revitalised during the Trump administration and enhanced further during the Biden administration)	Australia, India, Japan, US	2004
10	AUKUS	Australia, UK, US	2021
11	Emerging Indo-Pacific trilaterals/quadrilaterals	Australia-Japan-Philippines-US; Japan-Philippines-US; Australia-Japan-US; Japan-South Korea-US	2024

Note: This list is non-exhaustive and mainly comprises those minilateral mechanisms established/enhanced by the US during the Biden administration

SOUTHEAST ASIA: STRADDLING DIFFERENT REALMS

Efforts by the US and China to reshape the international order have led to a transitional world where established paradigms are challenged, traditional institutions co-opted or contested, and new institutions and networks established for their respective geopolitical objectives. In their own ways, both powers have become revisionists of the international system, as they engage with international institutions in selective and expedient ways. Neither can claim to uphold a purer form of multilateralism, as both are prepared to resort to unilateral measures where needed to advance their national interests.

China, for example, continues to handle its sovereign debt restructuring with debtor nations bilaterally, preferring direct control over outcomes. While Beijing continues to leverage the WTO for its commercial interests, it has unilaterally penalised trade partners that defy its geopolitical preferences, such as Australia and Lithuania. Meanwhile, although the US under the Biden administration continues to retain influence over established institutions like the UN, it has shifted its strategic focus and investment towards more compact strategic, economic and technological alliances. These often bypass, sideline, or undermine broad-based institutions such as the WTO or ASEAN.

Where do Southeast Asian countries stand amid these different institutional realms?

On the one hand, Southeast Asian countries are present in all broad-based multilateral platforms, as most of them are developing nations with historical affiliations with Global South institutions. Meanwhile, their representation in US-led institutions is far more limited, as most are not US allies, with the notable exception of the Philippines, which, under the Marcos Jr administration, has actively joined the US-led “new convergence in the Indo-Pacific”.

Of note, China’s outreach to Global South institutions, though deeply rooted in geopolitical motivations, places a strong emphasis on economic development, which resonates strongly with the needs and aspirations of Southeast Asian countries. Development-focused initiatives like the BRI, GDI, and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) garner broad support across the region. While their participation in these initiatives does not equate to a wholesale endorsement of the Chinese worldview or alignment with China against the US, the big number of participants bolsters China’s propaganda about the legitimacy to its global strategy.

In contrast, the US proposition, which revolves around shared threat perceptions regarding China and shared political values, tends to be less appealing—and even sensitive—for most Southeast Asian nations. The fear of reprisals from China is another constraining factor. Therefore, although Southeast Asian governments are relatively open to the prospect of joining BRICS, they maintain a cautious distance from the Quad. Moreover, as developing countries with limited resources and capabilities, most Southeast Asian states find themselves excluded from US-led circles, which primarily comprise technologically, economically, and militarily advanced allies.

In contrast, the US proposition, which revolves around shared threat perceptions regarding China and shared political values, tends to be less appealing—and even sensitive—for most Southeast Asian nations.

On the other hand, the numerical advantage China seeks to wield through multilateral platforms should not be overstated, given the trade-offs between size and coherence within such institutions. China’s reliance on broad-based multilateralism allows it to rally diplomatic support from developing nations for its global narratives and initiatives – often through motherhood statements demanding greater justice, fairness, multipolarity, and democracy in international relations. However, these platforms lack the strategic coherence needed to deliver concrete outcomes – nor are they designed to do so. Although China may use the broad diplomatic leverage of these platforms to enhance its claim of being more representative of the international community than the US, China faces challenges in translating this into tangible strategic gains.

Meanwhile, US-led compact alliances and coalitions offer greater agility and synergy among their select membership, enabling more focused action in the Indo-Pacific. While the effectiveness of some US initiatives remains uneven – for instance, the Build Back Better (B3) and the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment (PGI) have struggled to present viable alternatives to China’s infrastructure financing in the region, and tangible outcomes from IPEF remain elusive – the incentives for cooperation among the US and its allies are strong where concerns about China converge, particularly in defence, security, and critical technologies. This collaboration has fostered coordinated actions on technology export controls, and the friendshoring and nearshoring of their strategic supply chains. It has also advanced the US Integrated Deterrence strategy, which emphasises interoperability, joint capability development, and coordinated diplomatic and economic approaches with its allies and partners. This has been achieved through the increasing frequency of summits and ministerial meetings, enhanced policy and security dialogues, joint patrols and military exercises, targeted arms transfers, and a series of defence agreements focused on reciprocal access, intelligence sharing, and industrial defence collaboration among these countries.

While not being members of these US-led coalitions, some Southeast Asian countries have reaped tangible benefits from their initiatives. These include, for example, the Quad’s Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness, which provides littoral states with the tools to monitor their waters and manage maritime security challenges, the expansion of the Quad Fellowship for ASEAN students, and the transfer of coast guard and navy vessels from Quad countries to Southeast Asian nations to boost their maritime capabilities.

Southeast Asian countries thus straddle different institutional realms by making flexible multiple choices, rather than resorting to a binary choice. They engage with China’s discourse on a multipolar world while also aligning with the US on the need to uphold a rules-based order, especially regarding maritime disputes in the South China Sea. Their specific alignment with either power is contingent on the issues at hand, with different sets of rules applied. For example, seven Southeast Asian countries have joined the US-led IPEF, including Thailand and Malaysia, which have in the meantime also applied for BRICS membership. Indonesia is seeking membership in the developed countries’ club – the Organisation for Economic Cooperation Development (OECD) – but does not rule out the possibility of joining BRICS. Vietnam, while ideologically aligned with China and Russia at the UN, has embraced the “free and open Indo-Pacific” construct with the US and other Quad members.

All this while, Southeast Asian countries continue to leverage their ASEAN-based platforms to advocate for adherence to international law and the global free trade agenda. They have rallied diplomatic support from China, the US and other powers for the implementation of the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP). Apart from implementing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – the world’s largest free trade agreement that involves ASEAN member states, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand – ASEAN is pursuing upgrades to its free trade agreements with China and India, while negotiating a new one with Canada. This dynamic underscores that Southeast Asian nations are navigating multiple institutional pathways to advance their interests in an increasingly contested global arena.

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This is an adapted version of ISEAS Perspective 2024/90 published on 29 October 2024. The paper and its references can be accessed at this link.