US should step up diplomacy in Southeast Asia amid China’s growing economic influence

As China’s economic influence grows, the US needs to take Asean more seriously with regular visits by top officials including Biden
It also needs to offer wider access to the US market, and understand that a vital safeguard against Chinese domination of the region is a strong Asean

Daljit Singh

Published: 10:30am, 26 Aug 2023

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A report issued earlier this month by two US-based institutes provides useful proposals to enhance Washington’s profile in Southeast Asia.

Written by a joint task force of the Asia Society’s Centre on US-China relations and the 21st Century China Centrre of the University of California in San Diego, the report was prepared and launched on August 1 after careful consultations with both American and Southeast Asian experts. The proposals it makes are sensible but the challenge lies in their implementation.

It stresses the critical importance of Southeast Asia to US interests and its competition with China. Entitled “Prioritising Southeast Asia in US-China Relations”, it notes the region’s unwillingness to take sides in the US-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 United States should not look at the region just through the lens of competition with China but rather on its own merits.

Washington should step up diplomacy with Asean and its constituent states with regular visits by important members of the US administration, including the president, and members of the US Congress. America should openly welcome a multi-actor regional order rather than view it largely in bipolar US-China terms, take the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as an organisation seriously and not just pursue bilateral relationships.

It should step up its public diplomacy in Southeast Asia because US contributions are not well known in the region. The US should also urgently increase its economic engagement by joining regional organisations or consider negotiating a US-Asean free-trade agreement with substantial access to the American market.

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

From left: leaders of the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, US, Cambodia, Indonesia, Brunei and Laos with Malaysia’s lower house speaker at last year’s Asean-US summit in Phnom Penh. Photo: AFP

The recommendation that Washington step up its public diplomacy in Southeast Asia is understandable. The US’ still-substantial contributions in areas such as education, culture and the economy are not well publicised in the region.

US investments in Southeast Asia, for instance, far outstrip China’s, yet not many Southeast Asians know about this. In Singapore, not many people 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 US.

In principle, there should be no insurmountable obstacle to stepping up US public diplomacy, but bureaucratic impediments and 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.

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The recommendation for more US economic engagement with the region is of crucial importance, as China’s economic influence in the region has expanded rapidly. Washington is aware of this and has initiated the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, but this is not enough on its own as it does not provide more access to the US market.

An arrangement that provides more access would be difficult to implement, however, given the domestic mood in the US against trade liberalisation and the hostility towards it in Congress. But the issue is so important that the Biden administration, the US Chamber of Commerce, the US-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 from the Biden administration and Congress with regular visits and attention to Southeast Asia is laudable. Indeed, the report decries the episodic and inconsistent approach of the past.

Biden shakes hands with Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, as Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr (left) and Thailand’s Prayuth Chan-ocha look on, at last year’s Asean-US Summit. Photo: EPA-EFE

However, the US is a global power and crises or other imperatives elsewhere demanding urgent attention from the president and senior officials could still detract from the attention being paid to Southeast Asia. traditionally, key military allies of the United States have received the most attention, 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 vital for sustaining it over the longer term. Both chambers of the US Congress have legislators from both parties with strong anti-China dispositions.

They are likely to frame other countries as being for or against the US, and may find it difficult to appreciate hedging or neutral behaviour. They could easily turn impatient with resources and time spent on countries that do not support the US in its rivalry with China. The report is valuable in trying to break such a binary logic and advocate for a more nuanced approach.

A 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

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 US 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 US 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 domestic US political dynamics, with all the uncertainty they involve, will also have a major bearing on the nature of future US engagement with Southeast Asia. The Biden administration’s record may not be perfect, but it should at least get kudos for the way it has sought to engage allies and partners in a rules-based regional order.

Though all bets will be off if a president with erratic or isolationist tendencies is elected in 2024.

Daljit Singh is Visiting Senior Fellow at the Regional Strategic & Political Studies Programme, ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. This commentary was first published on Fulcrum.sg.