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US-China relations
ChinaDiplomacy

Kamala Harris, Southeast Asia and the balancing act nations face between US and China

  • Both Washington and Beijing used the US vice-president’s visit to offer Covid-19 vaccine support for Vietnam
  • Hanoi and other governments in the region may be able to use the growing US-China rivalry to their advantage, observers say

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During her stop in Vietnam, US Vice-President Kamala Harris promised to send a million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Photo: AFP
Laura Zhou
US Vice-President Kamala Harris’ recent trip to Southeast Asia may signify that the US is changing the way it manages relations with the region, where most countries are wary of picking sides in its escalating rivalry with China, diplomatic observers say.
During a speech in Singapore, Harris promised that the US was not seeking “zero-sum” engagement with Southeast Asia, but sharply rebuked China’s territorial claims in the disputed South China Sea.

Two days later, in Hanoi, she told Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc that the two countries “need to find ways to pressure and raise the pressure, frankly, on Beijing to abide by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, and to challenge its bullying and excessive maritime claims”.

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She also said the US also wanted to upgrade its relationship with its former adversary to a strategic partnership, promising to support Vietnam’s digital economy, donate a million doses of Covid-19 vaccine, open a new regional centres for disease control office and build a new US$1.2 billion US embassy compound.

In addition, she also announced that the Peace Corps would start operating in Vietnam after 17 years of negotiations – a stark contrast to China where the organisation ended its operations last year.

Xu Liping, a Southeast Asia affairs specialist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said the visit might be an effort to “reassure” the region of Washington’s commitment and dispel doubts that it was serious about “highlighting Asean centrality as a core component of the free and open Indo-Pacific strategy”.

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