US ‘the lesser evil’ to ASEAN: Malaysian scholar

ASEAN should not feel threatened by the establishment of the US military base in Darwin, Australia, because if anything, it could be beneficial to the 10 member states that see China as a bigger threat, a Malaysian scholar suggested here on Wednesday.

The US might have decided on the move for its own selfish reasons, namely to maintain its influence in Asia and in response to China’s emerging power in the region, but the US poses less of a threat to ASEAN, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia’s Center for American studies head K. S. Nathan said.

“They [ASEAN, the US and Australia] don’t want China to dominate the future of Asia. They want China to be an important player in the future, but within the framework of a multilateral security dialogue, within the framework of multilateralism, within which ASEAN will have more space to breathe,” Nathan told a discussion hosted by the University of Indonesia at its Central Jakarta campus.

“In Southeast Asia, the general talk is that we see all those major powers as devils. But, we deal with the lesser devil, the United States, because we can engage the United States in ways that we cannot engage with other major powers,” he added.

Nathan explained that the Darwin base could thus be beneficial to ASEAN as the additional US military presence could help counter China’s rising power, especially regarding its assertive claims in the South China Sea.

“My own reading of the Darwin base is that it is in the mutual interest of ASEAN to have that base in Darwin, but not in ASEAN. ASEAN is very clever, let other people do the dirty work for them and then enjoy the benefits,” he said.