As the connection between the US and China continues to deteriorate, and with the looming return of former President Donald Trump to the White Home promising the potential for additional escalation, international locations in Southeast Asia are more and more frightened about having to decide on between the 2 giants. However with the exception of the Philippines, not one of the international locations of the Affiliation of Southeast Asian Nations, ASEAN, need to explicitly align with the US. Certainly, almost all of them are traditionally identified for hedging between nice powers.
In exploring their choices to keep away from being utterly caught up in U.S.-China tensions, many Southeast Asian states are eagerly constructing strong ties with Asia’s center powers—Japan, Australia, South Korea and, to some extent, India—in addition to exterior powers like Russia and the European Union.
If these smaller Southeast Asian states are increasing their financial and safety partnerships, it isn’t simply to withstand strain from the U.S. to affix an anti-China coalition, strain that’s prone to improve beneath a second Trump administration. It is usually to create checks and balances towards China beneath President Xi Jinping. Xi’s more and more aggressive rhetoric and actions in disputed regional waters just like the South China Sea have already raised issues within the area. Now there are fears that he might use additional coercive actions because the Chinese language economic system falters.
