Opinion | US-Asean relations: focus on China competition risks ruining Biden’s diplomatic outreach

The Biden administration’s approach to Southeast Asia is a clear upgrade from the Trump era, but it still leaves much to be desired

The focus on competition with China and values-based foreign policy could short-circuit US efforts to shore up its influence in the region

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Published: 5:30am, 28 Oct 2022

“We’re launching a new era – a new era – in US-Asean relations,” US President Joe Biden said during his special summit with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) leaders earlier this year. He reassured his Asean counterparts that, “our relationship with you is the future, in the coming years and decades” since “a great deal of history of our world in the next 50 years is going to be written in the Asean countries”.

In a bid to underscore his commitment to the region, Biden promised not only a new set of cooperative arrangements but also nominated a top aide as the next US ambassador to Asean. The summit marked the first time in almost 50 years that all Asean leaders were invited for a joint meeting in the White House. Former president Barack Obama hosted a similar summit in 2016, but that was held at Sunnylands in California.

However, Biden’s new national security strategy shows Southeast Asian countries are once again being pushed to the margins of Washington’s strategic priorities. Whereas, in the past, troubles in the Middle East often distracted US presidents, this time, the crises in Ukraine and Taiwan have absorbed much of Washington’s strategic bandwidth.

By all indications, the Biden administration has embraced a new era of great power competition. Meanwhile, Washington has yet to provide a concrete economic agenda for the region, as China forges ahead with large infrastructure projects from Laos to Indonesia.

Until recently, there was optimism about US foreign policy in Southeast Asia. For regional observers, Biden’s election victory in 2020 had the potential to usher in a new era of improved diplomatic engagement. Outgoing president Donald Trump largely ignored Southeast Asian nations, repeatedly skipping Asean summits in favour of high-stakes diplomatic machinations vis-à-vis China, Russia and North Korea.

A 2021 survey by the Singapore-based ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute found that the “region’s support for Washington may have increased as a result of the prospects of the new Biden administration”. More than 60 per cent of respondents in the survey, composed of thought leaders and policymakers, preferred stronger relations with the United States over China.