Centre on Asia and Globalisation
Major Power Relations
Globalisation and Trade
Geopolitics and Technology
International Relations of Southeast Asia

International Relations of Southeast Asia

CAG will focus on two research themes: the role of Southeast Asia in global governance in the Indo-Pacific, and domestic sources of Southeast Asian foreign and strategic policies.

The polarising effects of geostrategic competition have reduced the manoeuvring space of Southeast Asian countries. Yet, Southeast Asian middle powers continue to exercise agency. We will examine the extent to which Southeast Asian countries are able to maintain strategic autonomy in the midst of great power competition, and the policy tools they use to do so. In addition, we aim to explore the strategic alternatives Southeast Asian countries pursue and how these alternatives shape the regional security architecture.

The first project is about “Securitization of Undersea Cables in the Indo-Pacific: Opportunities and Risks for Southeast Asia”. Undersea cables represent strategic infrastructure that plays an increasing role in geopolitical power dynamics. The objective of this project is to determine how Southeast Asian countries choose cable providers, and how they govern and compete in this still very ad hoc space.

Principle Investigators

  • Barbora Valockova
  • Mae Chow

A second project assesses the evolving minilateral architecture and its impact on ASEAN. We are interested in partnership minilaterals such as Quad and AUKUS and their impact on ASEAN centrality, and in intra-regional minilaterals such as Cambodia-Laos-Vietnam Trilateral Security Cooperation and their influence on the effectiveness of ASEAN regionalism. We investigate the following questions: To what extent do these minilateral arrangements erode ASEAN regionalism? And under what conditions are they mutually supportive?

Principle Investigators

  • Kei Koga
  • Barbora Valockova

A second project will examine domestic politics and structures of Southeast Asian countries as significant drivers of their foreign and strategic policies. More specifically, it will analyze how presidential agency and domestic politics shape foreign policy choices on South China Sea by examining how the Philippines and Vietnam chose to cooperate by conducting joint military exercises despite their competing claims. In so doing, they seem to set a new blueprint for handling South China Sea disputes.

The strategic competition between the United States and China is often seen as a rivalry confined to the two great powers alone, in which secondary states such as those in Southeast Asia have little influence and will inevitably end up “choosing sides”. However, this assumption overlooks how the domestic politics of Southeast Asian states shape their foreign policies. Furthermore, if the United States or China is to attain a leadership role and legitimacy in the region, it requires the validation, support, and deference of smaller states, none of which can be achieved without consideration of domestic politics. Thus, this project underscores the domestic determinants of the foreign policy of Southeast Asian states, identifying how their concerns about economic security, political legitimacy and regional stability mediate their engagement with the United States and China.

Workshops

Special Issue Launch Event

  • Domestic Determinants of Southeast Asia's Relations with the United States and China, May 9, 2024.

Publications

Principle Investigators

  • Chin-Hao Huang
  • Selina Ho

Southeast Asian states face numerous security challenges that require the assistance of external partners. China and India, two Indo-Pacific powerhouses, could offer potential solutions but their relations with Southeast Asian states vary considerably. At the same time, escalating tensions between China and India increase the risks of their engagement with Southeast Asian states leading to greater polarization in the region. By utilizing the "4-C Calculus", which comprises cost, complexity, credibility and capacity, this special issue seeks to understand how Southeast Asian states evaluate China and India as potential security cooperation partners, and whether cooperation with both—together or individually—can help address the region's security needs. The articles in this project employ the 4-C framework to analyse five key security concerns: defence modernization; health security; the post-coup crisis in Myanmar; humanitarian assistance and disaster relief; and maritime security. They contribute to the literature on security partnerships by providing fresh insights into our understanding of why and how smaller states partner with larger powers over shared security challenges, as well as by illustrating how certain policy considerations can influence the direction and quality of security partnerships.

PartnershipOrPolarisation

Workshops

  • Workshop 1 (online), December 12, 2022.
  • Workshop 2 (in person), February 24, 2023.

Publication

Principle Investigators

  • Evan Laksmana
  • Byron Chong

Following three decades of relative stability and economic growth since the end of the Cold War, the past ten years have been characterized by steadily intensifying strategic competition between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) which threatens to undo the decades of peace and prosperity that have benefitted Southeast Asia. China’s reform and opening model generated rapid economic growth since joining the WTO in 2001 contributing to substantial economic benefits for Southeast Asia as well as the US, underwritten by a robust US-led security network that enabled nations to spend liberally on domestic development, rather than international security. Southeast Asian states effectively balanced their relationships between the United States and China, garnering economic and security benefits from both. Xi Jinping came to power in 2012 ushering in what Chinese leaders call a “new era,” ending Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening period. Under Xi, China’s foreign and domestic policies have steadily evolved, with the Communist Party of China (CPC) taking on a greater, more visible role in policy-making and supervision of China’s government, society, and economy.

Many Asian and European countries are responding to China’s more assertive foreign policy, economic nationalism, and expanding military power by strengthening their security alliances with the US, diversifying their economic relationships, and engaging in other hedging and balancing behaviours. Tensions between China and the US have resulted in intensifying competition and the securitization of economic relationships. These trends are causing considerable concern in Southeast Asia, about the future of their relationship with China, the risks of escalating US-China tensions including the prospect of military conflict, and the implications of these possible outcomes for each Southeast Asian state’s strategy to balance relations between the US and China so they can continue to garner benefits from both powers.

For Southeast Asian states, the impact of US-China competition plays out primarily in three sectors: diplomacy and international security; military cooperation; and trade and economics. Areas where Southeast Asian states can enhance their resilience and increase cooperation exist in each sector including opportunities for cooperation in climate change which is arguably a diplomatic, security, and economic issue. Ultimately, the key factor is the agency of Southeast Asian states and how they choose to exert themselves to preserve their autonomy and maintain their freedom of manoeuvre in the face of what they see as risk and pressure from the US and China. As each Southeast Asian state exercises its own agency and develops balancing or hedging strategies, the consistent theme expressed by them is clear, “don’t make us choose sides.”

This report is the outcome of a project sponsored by the United States Institute of Peace to explore and understand Southeast Asian perspectives of US strategies and presence in Asia, analysing diplomatic, economic, and security dynamics, and how regional states are responding to intensifying US-China competition.

Workshops

  • Southeast Asian Perspectives of the US Presence and Strategy in the Region, March 2 – 3, 2023.

Publications

Principle Investigator

  • Drew Thompson

This project seeks to explore the intersections of Northeast and Southeast Asian security, which is understudied and infrequently discussed. For Southeast Asia, where national security interests are increasingly defined by what a country will not do, we challenged contributors to consider what countries might do when confronted by the prospects of a conflict in the region. Some participants were asked to consider what conditions would prompt their respective country to actively respond to conflict, and whether there were conditions under which smaller states might take a more proactive stance to prevent or contribute to efforts to deter conflict. The findings of this report make clear that there are diverse views. Some states are bandwagoning together to deter aggression while building their own military capabilities. Others express a strong aversion to taking any measures to prevent conflict that might make them subject to coercion or retaliation from China, regardless of the indirect cost of the conflict itself. Some Southeast Asian states may strengthen their non-aligned posture, and even take tangible measures to deny the benefits of cooperation to parties to a conflict, such as not permitting passage or overflight to military planes and vessels. Stimulating this pervasive non-alignment is China’s tremendous economic influence and willingness to use economic sanctions and diplomatic coercion. China’s most powerful tool of deterrence in Southeast Asia is economic coercion, and it is clearly effective.

As the US develops and implements its strategy to enrol allies and partners to counter China and deter Beijing from using force on its periphery, Washington must better understand the security perspectives of Southeast Asian states in order to recognise its increasingly clear limits. Southeast Asian states do not view China itself as a military or a security threat, but are increasingly aware of the risks of a conflict in Northeast Asia affecting their economic and political interests. A key finding of this project is that the awareness of the impact and undesirability of a conflict on its immediate periphery is not sufficient to move Southeast Asian states to either take active measures to prevent a conflict, or work overtly with the United States to deter China from using force against its neighbours.

Project Design and Intentions

This project was intended to bring together experts from Northeast and Southeast Asia as well as the US, India and Australia to exchange views on common and divergent interests in maintaining peace and stability in the region. Participants were asked to consider how the risk of conflict in the East China Sea or over Taiwan affects security calculations throughout the region, and whether there are conditions in which countries in Southeast Asia might take tangible, proactive steps to avert a conflict. At the outset of the project, it was apparent that many Southeast Asian foreign policy experts had very little exposure to Northeast Asian security issues, particularly Taiwan and cross-Strait relations. Several contributors commented to the editors that they had never analysed cross-Strait security dynamics before, or visited Taiwan previously, despite their deep experience as academics or practitioners in Southeast Asia.

An online roundtable with all contributors was convened in March 2022 to stimulate their thoughts and inform their papers.

The essays in this compendium are intended to reflect the diverse views of the authors. The editors consciously wielded a light pen and avoided compelling contributors to conform to a specific style or outlook, seeking to preserve their original voice to the greatest extent possible in order to underscore the diversity of perspectives and interests in the region.

This project was made possible through the support and intellectual contributions provided by Japan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Workshop

  • Online Conference, March 16, 2022.

Publications

Principle Investigators

  • Drew Thompson
  • Byron Chong

The intensifying US-China strategic rivalry forces difficult alignment choices for all regional countries. While these countries carefully calculate the potential costs and benefits of their respective alignment choice, what is often neglected in this strategic consideration is the fact that the norms and principles upon which the postwar international order was constructed are weakening or even disappearing. This is unfortunate for all but particularly for the Republic of Korea (hereafter Korea) and Singapore, which are arguably the two countries in the region that benefited the most from that order.

With the growing complexity of the regional environment, both Korea and Singapore began to search for other potential partnerships beyond great powers. Korea broke its long- standing neglect of Southeast and South Asia with its New Southern Policy under the previous Moon Jae-in administration. The current Yoon Suk-yeol government, despite its disagreement with the previous administration, has continued and advanced Korea’s turn to Southeast and South Asia under the slogan of ‘Global Pivotal State.’ With its support of ASEAN centrality and ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, the Yoon government aims to play a greater role in regional affairs and seeks to upgrade its relationship with ASEAN, particularly in the security and economic domain. ASEAN, including Singapore, on the other hand, is deeply concerned with the deteriorating US-China relationship that threatens to destabilize the region and weaken ASEAN’s internal cohesion. Hence it has increasingly looked to other external powers to do more to promote and maintain regional peace and stability and to help Southeast Asia advance in socioeconomic development. Korea is thought of as a useful partner in this regard, especially when Seoul’s significant technological prowess can benefit developing nations of ASEAN and create opportunities to set new norms and rules in emerging areas such as the digital economy.

We identified three key issues, and they are the regional strategic assessment, maritime security, and supply chains. While these issues are by no means exhaustive, nor are they comprehensive, we believe that they are most critical for Korea and Singapore. The peace and prosperity of these two nations have greatly depended upon the symbiotic and collegial US-China relationship, the preservation of maritime peace and security, and participation in the existing global and regional supply chains. As such, they are deeply concerned with the changing landscape of regional strategic dynamics and its ensuing impact on maritime security and supply chains. It is the shared concerns and common goals that engendered the heightened need for bilateral cooperation for regional collective goods.

This project was made possible with generous financial support from the Republic of Korea Embassy in Singapore.

Workshop

  • Republic of Korea-Singapore Security Forum, November 3, 2023.

Publications

Principle Investigators

  • Ryu Yongwook

The survey gauges how Southeast Asians think about their own identity amidst US-China competition. It was completed in June 2022.

Point person

  • Yongwook Ryu

The COVID-19 pandemic presents an unprecedented opportunity to assess our collective ability to respond to emergencies. The pandemic is especially indicative of both the technical/institutional capacities as well as social and political will to ensure the well-being of vulnerable populations. Governments and communities’ response to the various health, social, economic, and psychological challenges triggered by the pandemic also inform our understanding of the degrees of emergency preparedness and aptitude to overcome major existential crises. In other words, the on-going pandemic crisis itself presents an opportune moment to gage the degrees of emergency preparedness and “fitness” of governments, communities, and transnational actors to address a major existential crisis.

Currently, there are no mechanisms for systematic in-depth, cross-country assessment of crisis preparedness accounting for social protection provisions at transnational, state, and local levels. Yet such assessment is critical for understanding both the challenges and opportunities to support persons in precarious circumstances in times of emergency. At the same time, examining the vast range of practices, tools and responses to the pandemic can provide governments, transnational actors, and civil society organizations with access to information and best practices that could be scaled and replicated.

The project establishes an initial conceptualization of an assessment mechanism, the Emergency Preparedness Index. The pilot version captures data findings on social protection extended to migrants across Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Singapore.

Workshop

  • Workshop, November 17, 2021

Principle Investigator

  • Marina Kaneti

In the more than five decades since the founding of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, relations among its member states have remained generally peaceful, and major interstate conflict has been all but eliminated. Yet, ASEAN now faces significant challenges, not least from competition between the United States and China that threatens to draw individual ASEAN countries into taking sides. This report discusses ASEAN’s role in maintaining peace and stability in Southeast Asia and how it can adapt to a rapidly evolving geopolitical climate to meet future challenges.

This project was a collaboration with the United States Institute of Peace.

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Workshop

  • Regional Workshop on Building Peace and Resiliency in Southeast Asia, August 1-2, 2019.

Report Launch Event

  • ASEAN Faces the Future: What to Expect from the 27th ASEAN Regional Forum, September 3, 2020.

Publications

Principle Investigators

  • Drew Thompson
  • Byron Chong