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f Indonesia and ASEAN had any pretensions that its touted East Asia Community could manage a dynamic equilibrium in avoiding a dreaded Cold War-like rivalry of alliances, then such notions were thrown halfway out the window last week.

Sandwiched between two major summits, APEC in Honolulu and the East Asia Summit in Bali, US President Barack Obama’s formal announcement of heightened military presence through a Darwin military base is a marker for what could be a drawn-out era of intra-regional rivalry.

The US, Australia, the Philippines (and more timidly Singapore and India), on the one side, versus a rising China on the other. While most of Southeast Asia caught in the middle being dragged one way or another.

Washington is sticking to its long held motto of “places not bases”. So technically the US is “not” establishing a base in Darwin. But let us not get stuck in the technicalities. US base or not, it amounts to the same thing.

It is beefing up deployment of a 2,500-strong Marine Air Ground Taskforce in Darwin by 2016, a springboard to Southeast Asia and the South China Sea.

According Sydney’s Daily Telegraph, sources in Canberra confirmed that it would be the first time the US would be able to conduct exercises on Australian soil.

Tindall Air Force base will see a boost with US B-52 bombers, F-18 fighters, tankers and spy planes, while Sterling naval base off Perth welcomes US ships and submarines.

Former prime minister John Howard received much flak for a “deputy sheriff” comment a decade ago. But Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s actions are more destabilizing than any curt remark.

She has made it clear where Canberra stands: Australia isn’t against the region, but it is clearly for America.

Her words carefully chosen as she dug up old history referring to Darwin as the “Pearl Harbor of Australia”, while Obama called the bilateral ties an “indispensable alliance”.

The rapport between the two leaders was evident. In Obama’s company, Melbourne’s Herald Sun said Gillard “looked like she’s won a date with George Clooney”.

Over the past fortnight, the American narrative has been deliberate. It’s back, it’s committed long term and it wants its way.

Its jibes persistently aimed at China, diplomacy shoring up old alliances and persuading new ones – going so far as to acknowledge reforms in Myanmar by committing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to a visit to the once regional pariah.

“The currents of history may ebb and flow but over time they move decisively in one direction. History is on the side of the free,” Obama told the Australian Parliament.

At every turn the US, with Gillard also getting in the act in Bali, tried to sell its economic Trans-Pacific Partnership. Indonesia is reluctant, while Beijing sees this US-made deal as an attempt to squeeze China out of regional trade agreements.

Long-time US ally, the Philippines, in Bali pushed for a joint ASEAN stand against China over territorial disputes in the South China Sea. A move which was rejected by other ASEAN members.

China has remained cool in its response to what it perceives as an uncool US move. The critical juncture will be how far Washington threatens China’s personal honor (mianzi) in a region they consider their own.

The East Asia Community was designed as a pipe dream to foster regional harmony. The Summit though became a chessboard board of subtle regional rivalry.

Indonesia and ASEAN had its own vision for the region. One in which they would maintain centrality without being pawns in power rivalry. That candlelit vision pales in the bright halogen spotlight of China and the US’ competing ambitions.

Two decades after the Cold War, Southeast Asia will find itself where it first started: as pawns in the strategic chess match, albeit with better diplomatic niceties and ASEAN more solid.

Unlike in the past, the terms will not be dictated. Yet ultimately the chess pieces will be set to a point where countries like Indonesia will be forced to make a move they do not want to make, one against the other, into a fait accompli alliance.

More than ever in the past decade, the “independent and active” foreign policy will be put to the test.

Sometimes it may be a case of better the devil you know, than the devil you don’t. So let there be no mistake. Indonesia wants a US presence in the region. It wants a fine balance between the two.

Jakarta should be wary of a rising China whose assertions have been disquietingly unsubtle the past year. But neither does Indonesia want a US hegemony redux.

Indonesia wants the best of both worlds, yet as things stand it is unlikely to get it.

While China is still a few decades from bullying the region, everyone also knows that the old bully is just around the corner marching back.