As China solidifies its position as ASEAN’s largest trading partner, what does this mean for the future of regional power dynamics? With China’s regional influence expanding amid intensifying rivalry with the United States, the future of Southeast Asia’s regional order has become a focal point of debate. Researchers Dr Selina Ho from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and Dr Terence Lee from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies examined how ASEAN elites perceive China’s role—uncovering critical insights into who shapes the rules, and who holds real authority in the region.
Shifting Power and the Contest for Regional Order
Southeast Asia has a long history of being at the centre of competition among great powers due to its strategic location at the intersection of major trade routes and critical Indo-Pacific maritime corridors. As China–US rivalry deepens, Southeast Asia’s status as a pivotal ‘swing’ zone is evident once again, with influence over the bloc carrying significant implications for both regional order and global power.
While the United States has been the dominant power across Southeast Asia, the balance is shifting as China’s influence accelerates, surpassing the US as ASEAN’s largest trading partner since 2020. Although the US remains the main defence partner for most Southeast Asian countries, China is challenging the regional security landscape, particularly in mainland Southeast Asian states like Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. Additionally, US policies, particularly Trump’s “Liberation Day tariffs,” have unsettled the region, enabling China to grow its influence.
ASEAN remains the central platform through which Southeast Asian states collectively shape regional cooperation and preserve autonomy amid competing great powers. Most countries deliberately avoid making a choice between China and the United States, preferring not to be exclusively aligned with either. While their influence on the global order is limited, ASEAN states exercise significant agency at the regional level, shaping Southeast Asia’s institutional and political architecture. Understanding how ASEAN elites perceive China is therefore crucial to grasping the region’s vision of order.
Influence Without Authority: Why China’s Power Does Not Equal Leadership
Ho and Lee’s research demonstrates that Southeast Asian elites acknowledge China’s growing influence but remain hesitant to accept its authority. They focus on elites, as foreign policymaking in Southeast Asia is an elite-driven process. Elite alignment with China’s preferences increases the likelihood of its order-building efforts succeeding. Their survey of elites across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam—ASEAN countries considered “least likely” to accept a China-led regional order—highlights that China’s cultural and historical ties do not translate into acquiescence to its regional leadership.
Although nearly three-quarters of respondents report that their policymakers feel close to China, its political norms and values are not widely embraced. “China's inability to articulate a set of values that could garner followers is a major weakness in its plans to exercise regional and global leadership,” the authors write.
Elites overwhelmingly prioritise liberal democratic principles over those promoted by China, and the majority view ASEAN as the central political actor in the region, favouring an inclusive, pluralistic approach to order rather than dominance by one single power. As the authors explain, “a hegemon cannot simply impose its will on smaller and weaker states; its right to rule is negotiated and renegotiated, and granted by these states.”
Ho and Lee assert that China’s ability to influence the region is therefore undermined by its lack of normative legitimacy, posing a key barrier to its emergence as the regional hegemon.
Why Norms and Identity Matter
Leadership in a regional order is about more than economic or military power—it also requires legitimacy: that a leader’s values, norms, and vision resonate with those it seeks to guide. Ho and Lee highlight that while China is influential and culturally proximate, Southeast Asian elites do not identify with its political values or broader normative vision. Over 90 per cent of respondents regard liberal democratic principles, such as democracy and rule of law, as more relevant to the governance of their countries than China’s political values, such as hierarchy and centralisation of authority, signalling that China has yet to offer norms that are widely accepted or socially appealing to Southeast Asian elites.
The authors note that China’s evident attempts to construct a Sino-centric hierarchy are further challenged by Southeast Asia’s cultural, religious, and ethnic diversity. While ASEAN champions a shared collective identity, it is also defined by its diversity of cultures—meaning that the imposition of a Sino-centric civilisational discourse – will not be accepted and deemed legitimate. They state that understanding the distinction between influence and authority helps explain why regional orders endure only when leadership is widely regarded as appropriate, underscoring ASEAN’s continuing role in shaping the regional balance of power.
ASEAN—An Imperfect Norm Custodian and Institutional Anchor
Despite China’s growing influence, Ho and Lee’s research shows that Southeast Asian elites continue to see ASEAN as the region’s central organising platform, guided by principles of inclusivity, consensus, autonomy, and non-hierarchical leadership. Its institutions and forums shape how great powers engage the region, while membership brings practical benefits that reinforce cohesion. ASEAN’s collective identity and institutional framework provide Southeast Asian states real agency amid great power competition.
However, ASEAN’s centrality has limits. As reflected in Ho and Lee’s research, member states differ in how they perceive China as a threat, and economic and strategic dependencies vary across the region. Maritime states such as the Philippines, Indonesia, and Singapore have deepened defence ties with the United States, while mainland Southeast Asian states are more reliant on China and Russia. As growing US–China rivalry pushes the region toward binary choices, ASEAN unity and centrality are challenged. Yet even amid these pressures, ASEAN’s norms and institutions continue to guide engagement, allowing the organisation to maintain influence—albeit with limits.
Influence Alone Cannot Secure Leadership in Southeast Asia
While China’s growing influence in Southeast Asia highlights its economic and strategic clout, Ho and Lee’s research underscores that power alone does not guarantee leadership. Without normative legitimacy, China’s ambitions remain constrained, particularly in a region that prizes pluralism, inclusivity, and collective decision-making through ASEAN.
While internal differences and the intensifying US–China rivalry test ASEAN’s cohesion, ASEAN continues to anchor the region. The broader lesson is clear: enduring leadership depends as much on legitimacy and shared norms as on material power, offering a reminder that powerful external players must engage ASEAN not as a sphere of influence, but as a community with its own norms, identity, and preferences.