AMONG THE PADI: Securing Sustainable Multipolarity in Southeast Asia by Fortifying ASEAN Centrality

Abstract

Given the strategic importance of Southeast Asia, how can the United States coexist with China in the 21st century? What would a successful foreign policy look like that establishes sustainable multipolarity and safeguards local interests? Amidst the region’s contemporary landscape of renewed great-power rivalry, the role of middle and small powers, united under the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), emerges as a critical component. Founded amongst the backdrop of Chinese, Soviet, and US geostrategic competition during the Cold War, ASEAN exists to facilitate collective responses to external great power pressure by managing internal member state divisions. By operating largely as a historical case study of the global dynamics impacting ASEAN since its inception, this thesis argues that contemporary multipolarity is dependent on ASEAN’s ability to establish a dynamic equilibrium of external influence in Southeast Asia. Seen this way, Washington’s regional engagement serves as a means of diluting Chinese influence, just as Chinese engagement positively dilutes US influence. America’s past policy failures, however, such as a return to containment and protectionism under the Trump administration, pushed ASEAN closer to China after the Cold War. If the United States wishes to coexist with China in Southeast Asia, it must invest in ASEAN’s capacity to establish coordinated responses to the region’s shared problems and avoid engagement defined solely by competition with China. Sustainable multipolarity will only be achieved if the United States fortifies ASEAN centrality. To this end, Washington must increase its bilateral free trade agreements with ASEAN member states, co-finance more AIIB projects through the World Bank and Asian Development Bank and encourage the swift membership of the UK in the East Asia Summit.