The Biden era: challenges and opportunities for Southeast Asia

By Michael Vatikiotis
Michael Vatikiotis is Asia Director of the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and author of ‘Blood and Silk: Power and Conflict in Modern Southeast Asia.

Republished in the Straits Times: https://www.straitstimes.com/opinion/the-biden-era-challenges-and-opportunities-for-south-east-asia

NOVEMBER, 21, 2020

Not a moment too soon, the Biden victory has generated a collective sigh of relief across Southeast Asia after four years of rollercoaster US policymaking in Asia that has heightened geo-political tensions and instilled unprecedented levels of uncertainty and some mistrust in the region’s relationships with Washington. 

It may be too soon to celebrate. The incoming Biden administration will be constrained by strong bipartisan consensus on the need to challenge China’s growing power. Despite early indications of the new administration’s foreign policy priorities with regards to climate change and supporting global efforts to manage the COVID19 pandemic, the Biden administration will regard Asia as the new frontline in a contest for primacy with America’s closest superpower rival, China.  There will be no letup in the strategy of countering China’s power and influence, even though more nuanced diplomacy as well as military posturing will be employed. 

The Biden administration’s strategy could force governments in Southeast Asia to choose which side they are on, and make every bilateral meeting with American or Chinese officials about taking sides.  And just as this mode of engagement impacted regional peace and security during the Cold War of the 1950s, so it could go the same way today.

Another, less obvious risk is that of potential proxy backing for the region’s internal conflicts, a trend that has significantly complicated the landscape of conflict in the Middle East.

The primary arena for proxy conflict is emerging in the South China Sea, where China’s expansive territorial claims and intrusive fishing forays are the focus of concern for littoral states from Southeast Asia – principally Brunei, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.  Already the dynamics of a slow-moving negotiation of a code of conduct between ASEAN states and China in the South China Sea have been roiled by American intervention. The US Navy has stepped up freedom of navigation patrols in the contested maritime area, emboldening some Southeast Asian states with regard to their posture on Chinese claims. The US State Department claims that the draft code of conduct, which is currently not legally binding, is biased towards Beijing’s interest at the expense of ASEAN’s.

The same problem appears to be evolving in the Mekong sub-region, where China’s multilateral mechanisms for managing water resources in the Mekong River, known as the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Forum (LMC) has gained momentum at the expense of older, Western funded organisations such as the Mekong River Commission.  In the past two years, Washington has signaled it wants to put more weight behind these older organisations to counter China’s rising influence in the Mekong sub-region. 

Arenas of sub-national conflicts in Southeast Asia may also be affected by the emerging geo-political contest. Already, liminal and dormant conflicts in North East India, along Myanmar’s border have been re-energised in recent months after the rising tensions between India and China in the Himalayas. 

Meanwhile, efforts by Western countries including the United States to support the Myanmar government’s efforts to negotiate an end to long-running conflicts with ethnic minorities such as the Shan, Kachin, and Karen have been steadily pushed back by China. Beijing regards the areas along the China-Myanmar border, where many of these ethnic armies are based and operate, as important for guarding China’s strategic reach into the region. A scenario for proxy support of internal conflict in Myanmar might involve China using informal ties to ethnic armed groups as an insurance against Myanmar moving too far back into the Western orbit. 

A third and perhaps less proximate risk is that the big powers may entangle themselves in democratic transitions to engineer domestic political outcomes that generate favourable alignments. In the earlier Cold War era, the United States was involved in toppling governments that were not aligned with its anti-communist policy. This generated political instability and upheaval in Indonesia, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam. This is less likely today. All the same, China has shown some inclination to comment on internal ructions in Cambodia and Thailand -- usually arguing for stability and the status quo -- despite a strong ideological adherence to the principle of non-interference. 

One upside of more “intense competition” -- as the Biden team likes to call it -- with China could well be that Southeast Asia receives more investment and financial assistance. China has signaled its willingness to make its coronavirus vaccine, which is currently being trialed in Indonesia, available to every country in Southeast Asia.  The US meanwhile, has started allocating more aid and development funding to countries such as Indonesia to help them tide over the sharp economic decline as a result of Covid-19.    

Overall, increased and more strident US-China competition will put strains on ASEAN.  As much as many Southeast Asian countries appreciate the US being tough on China to generate geo-political ballast or balance, they are unwilling to be seen as actively countering China’s power and influence. This is because China is the region’s biggest trading partner and nearest neighbour.

So what should ASEAN aim to do in the Biden era?  Engaging both the superpowers in a dialogue about replacing the quest for primacy with a shared common vision of security and prosperity for the Asia-Pacific region makes sense, though neither Beijing nor Washington are big fans of talking to each other in multilateral forums. Nonetheless, ASEAN’s best hope to mitigate what might otherwise seem like an inevitable path to a conflict between the US and China, even if not intentional, is to re-assert and strengthen its own forms of neutrality and non-alignment. This strategy confirms to ASEAN’s own ideology,  as enshrined in the idea of a Zone of Peace Freedom and Neutrality and made implicit in the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia.

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The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore.