US must accept Southeast Asia wants China to play a central Indo-Pacific role

Insisting on a ‘with us or against us’ world view will leave Washington out of step with an Indo-Pacific eager for Chinese involvement and cooperation instead of confrontation

Peter T. C. Chang

Published: 3:30am, 8 Jun 2022

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Many countries in the Indo-Pacific are reluctant to pick sides in the increasingly bitter US-China rivalry. Unless Washington accepts this, it could find itself out of sync with an Asia ready to work alongside a rising China.

Even as Russia wages war against the free world, the United States still sees China as the greatest challenger to its global leadership. Washington is determined to contain this threat at Beijing’s doorstep – that is, in the Indo-Pacific.

Last month, in his first trip to Asia, President Joe Biden said the US would defend Taiwan militarily. This once again muddled the long-standing US policy of “strategic ambiguity” on the Taiwan question.

The main point of Biden’s agenda in Tokyo was to unveil the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). For Southeast Asians who have long felt unease with the US’ Indo-Pacific strategy, the IPEF is a welcome change. In a show of support, seven Southeast Asian states signed on as founding members.

But without access to the US market, it is questionable whether Washington has brought enough to the table. Some are doubtful whether the framework will survive the Biden presidency. The overriding concern, however, is the exclusion of China.

Soon after returning from Tokyo, Secretary of State Antony Blinken presented his much-anticipated speech on China, depicting it as posing “the most serious long-term challenge to the international order”.

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The IPEF is thus set up to “shape the strategic environment around Beijing to advance our vision for an open and inclusive international system”. Washington’s intent, according to Blinken, is not to contain but to out-compete China.

Stuck between two feuding superpowers, Southeast Asian nations’ reflex is to assert the principle of Asean centrality. Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations want to be the architects of their own destiny, and there is genuine anxiety that tensions in the South China Sea could boil over into an open conflict, sparking war between the US and China.

The horrors of war in Vietnam are still fresh in the region’s collective memory. Would Southeast Asia suffer the same fate as Ukraine if the Quad transforms into an Asian Nato?

There is a civilisational dimension to the Indo-Pacific geopolitical tensions. Southeast Asians have inculcated a syncretic, pluralistic ethos over time. This inclusive world view informs the Asean Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, which espouses an open vision that aspires to accommodate all.

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By contrast, Christianity has a moral universe divided into distinct spheres of the sacred and the profane. This dualistic theology shapes America’s global leadership, governing the international order through the binary “us versus them” world view. It underpins the US vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific that seeks to exclude those deemed as being on the wrong side of the moral and ideological divide.

Similarly, the US is casting the war in Ukraine as a battle between democracies and autocracies. There are complicated forces behind the origins of the conflict, but the simplistic reduction of the tragedy to a clash of good versus evil has left some countries unwilling to side with the West.

India, for instance, has yet to join the US-led sanctions against Russia. As an emerging global power, India is not inclined to do others’ bidding. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at the 2018 Shangri-La Dialogue that India did not see “the Indo-Pacific Region as a strategy or as a club of limited members”.

The US-China rivalry is shaking up the 21st century balance of power. In Asia, old alliances are reconfiguring into new ones, inducing fresh geopolitical fault lines. Still, in spite of increasing geopolitical frictions, the Indo-Pacific region is also witnessing a geoeconomic convergence.

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China, for instance, is a primary trading partner of Southeast Asian countries, even as territorial disputes in the South China Sea remain unresolved. In 2021, Beijing upgraded China’s relationship with Asean to “comprehensive strategic partnership” status, deepening its economic footprint in the region.

This year, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has begun to take effect, setting in motion the making of the world’s largest trade bloc in history. Japan, Australia and China are signatories to the agreement.

These ideological rivals have chosen to ignore geopolitical differences to pursue common geoeconomic interests. The RCEP is expected to establish new rules for e-commerce, trade and intellectual property that could reshape the global economic order.

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The US withdrew itself from this economic loop when former president Donald Trump took America out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), citing the need to protect American jobs. The TPP was revived as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) under Japan’s leadership, and China has applied to join. Tokyo is eager for Washington to take part, but domestic politics are impeding US participation.

The IPEF is Biden’s attempt to stay economically engaged in the region, but it might be too little, too late. The RCEP and CPTPP can draw Indo-Pacific countries towards economic integration. However, Washington’s fixation on the China threat is pushing America in the opposite direction and towards a damaging decoupling from China.

For Asean, a free and open Indo-Pacific must accommodate a rising China. The US must accept this or risk being left behind. Until the US and China learn to coexist, the ongoing reconfiguration of the global balance of power will remain tense and dangerous.

Peter T.C. Chang is deputy director of the Institute of China Studies, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia