[SS from essay by Lynn Kuok, Lee Kuan Yew Chair in Southeast Asia Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Research Fellow at Cambridge University.]
The United States has recently been touting its “convergence” with Asian partners. At the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in June, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin titled his remarks the “New Convergence in the Indo-Pacific.”At the Brookings Institution the following month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken maintained that the United States enjoys “much greater convergence” with key Asian partners, citing improved ties with Japan and South Korea and the strengthening security links between NATO and the Indo-Pacific. And, also in July, at the Aspen Security Forum, Blinken reiterated that he had “not seen a time when there’s been greater convergence between the United States and our European partners and our partners in Asia in terms of the approach to Russia, but also in terms of the approach to China.”
But the truth is that the United States is losing ground in important parts of Asia. Each year, the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute—a research institute funded primarily by the Singaporean government but that conducts its work independently—polls between 1,000 and 2,000 respondents in academia, think tanks, the private sector, civil society, nonprofit organizations, the media, government, and regional and international organizations from the ten countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The survey is the closest thing the region has to a longitudinal study of “elite opinion” on regional and international matters, providing a good sense of the trajectory of perceptions, even if some might quibble with its finer details. In the poll this year, the majority of respondents picked [China](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/china) over the United States when asked whom ASEAN should align with if forced to choose between the two. This was the first time respondents picked China since the survey began posing this question in 2020.
Regarding this topic I would say it’s not that they choose China it’s more the fact a number of them are economically and through debt linked to the nation and understand that China looks at these surveys like a popularity contest. If they don’t fall in line the potential of negative repercussions is great.
Honestly why would citizens of any nation say that while China is assuming ownership of their territory.
Perhaps the US needs to negotiate back into the Trans Pacific Partnership, even if it means tearing it up and starting over again.
Why wouldn’t they? Instead of prioritizing investment into them, most of the US investment and trade arguably went toward the CCP, which the CCP then used to turn the region into durian and banana farmers to tie them in economically, The high price of cheap goods that could be sourced elsewhere.
The current political climate in the USA is “America First”.
Why would smaller powers want to align themselves with a nation that openly isn’t interested in partnership that is unilateral?
Our people did not like China and the way they do business, but now it’s like you have two choices, China or no one. US has been no action, talk only for some years which it’s too long already.
6 comments
[SS from essay by Lynn Kuok, Lee Kuan Yew Chair in Southeast Asia Studies at the Brookings Institution and a Senior Research Fellow at Cambridge University.]
The United States has recently been touting its “convergence” with Asian partners. At the annual Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore in June, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin titled his remarks the “New Convergence in the Indo-Pacific.”At the Brookings Institution the following month, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken maintained that the United States enjoys “much greater convergence” with key Asian partners, citing improved ties with Japan and South Korea and the strengthening security links between NATO and the Indo-Pacific. And, also in July, at the Aspen Security Forum, Blinken reiterated that he had “not seen a time when there’s been greater convergence between the United States and our European partners and our partners in Asia in terms of the approach to Russia, but also in terms of the approach to China.”
But the truth is that the United States is losing ground in important parts of Asia. Each year, the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute—a research institute funded primarily by the Singaporean government but that conducts its work independently—polls between 1,000 and 2,000 respondents in academia, think tanks, the private sector, civil society, nonprofit organizations, the media, government, and regional and international organizations from the ten countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The survey is the closest thing the region has to a longitudinal study of “elite opinion” on regional and international matters, providing a good sense of the trajectory of perceptions, even if some might quibble with its finer details. In the poll this year, the majority of respondents picked [China](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/regions/china) over the United States when asked whom ASEAN should align with if forced to choose between the two. This was the first time respondents picked China since the survey began posing this question in 2020.
Regarding this topic I would say it’s not that they choose China it’s more the fact a number of them are economically and through debt linked to the nation and understand that China looks at these surveys like a popularity contest. If they don’t fall in line the potential of negative repercussions is great.
Honestly why would citizens of any nation say that while China is assuming ownership of their territory.
Perhaps the US needs to negotiate back into the Trans Pacific Partnership, even if it means tearing it up and starting over again.
Why wouldn’t they? Instead of prioritizing investment into them, most of the US investment and trade arguably went toward the CCP, which the CCP then used to turn the region into durian and banana farmers to tie them in economically, The high price of cheap goods that could be sourced elsewhere.
The current political climate in the USA is “America First”.
Why would smaller powers want to align themselves with a nation that openly isn’t interested in partnership that is unilateral?
Our people did not like China and the way they do business, but now it’s like you have two choices, China or no one. US has been no action, talk only for some years which it’s too long already.