Southeast Asia’s China anxieties are rising despite coronavirus aid, most would side with US: study

Name: US President Joe Biden foresees ‘extreme competition’ with China
Uploaded: 2021-02-10T08:26:20.000Z
Duration: 1 min 8 s
Description: US President Joe Biden foresees ‘extreme competition’ with China

While region’s elites acknowledge China has been of more help than the US in the pandemic, their concerns over Beijing’s clout have grown, study finds

Almost nine in 10 are worried about Beijing’s rising influence, and more than six in 10 now say the bloc should side with the US over China if forced to pick

3-MIN READ3-MIN

The Chinese navy conducts exercises in the South China Sea. Photo: AP

Bhavan Jaipragas

Published: 4:26pm, 10 Feb 2021Updated: 7:49pm, 10 Feb 2021

A new survey suggests that while Southeast Asian elites acknowledge China has done more to help the region fight the coronavirus than its rivals such as the United States, they are more anxious about Beijing’s rising regional clout now than they were before the pandemic.

The poll of 1,032 academics, government officials and business elites by the Asean Studies Centre at Singapore’s ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute found that not only had vaccine diplomacy done little to assuage longer term anxieties over China’s growing influence, in fact, such concerns had heightened.

A little more than 88 per cent of the respondents from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) said they were worried about China’s growing “regional and political influence” compared to just over 85 per cent who were asked the same question a year ago.

The annual survey – now in its third edition – was conducted from November 18 to January 10, after Joe Biden’s victory in the November 6 US presidential election. Most of those surveyed were from academia, research institutions or think tanks, followed by government officials, members of civil society and the media.

A little more than 61 per cent of respondents said Asean should pick the US over China if the bloc was forced to pick a side in the rivalry between the world’s two largest economies. That compared with just over 53 per cent a year ago.

Just 38.5 per cent said they would pick China, compared to 46.4 per cent a year ago.

01:08

US President Joe Biden foresees ‘extreme competition’ with China

This apparent preference came despite 44.2 per cent of respondents thinking China had provided the most help to the region in fighting the coronavirus, followed by Japan (18.2 per cent), the European Union (10.3 per cent) and the US (9.6 per cent).