Southeast Asia Doesn’t Want to Choose between China and the U.S.

“One lesson that I’ve learned after studying geopolitics for fifty years is that a benevolent great power is an oxymoron,” former Singaporean diplomat Kishore Mahbubani said at Asia Society, New York in March. “There is no such thing as a benevolent great power: All great powers, without exception, will pursue their own interests.”

Mahbubani, who served two terms as Singapore’s representative to the U.N., is one of many prominent Southeast Asians increasingly frustrated by external pressure on their countries to “choose” between aligning themselves with the U.S. or with China. Over the past 10 years, the U.S. has framed its vision for the region as the democratic, human rights-focused alternative to Xi Jinping’s world order, but many Southeast Asians doubt America’s commitment to upholding ASEAN interests alongside their own.

“For Southeast Asian countries, they cannot square the U.S.’ fixation with democracy, human rights and values, and the perceived inconsistencies in the U.S.’ actual policies and practices when realpolitik considerations kick in,” says Lee Sue-Anne, Senior Fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, a Singapore-based think tank. “Southeast Asians pointing out ‘whataboutisms’ and hypocrisy in U.S. foreign policy behaviour has been a constant feature of anti-U.S. sentiment in the region.”

Lee and Mahbubani’s skepticism is warranted, and it is rooted in the history of American involvement in Southeast Asia.

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