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Southeast Asians worried by superpower rivalry: Survey
Southeast Asians are becoming increasingly worried that their region is becoming an arena for major power rivalry, a new study shows, as anxiety over China’s rise continues to grow while confidence in the United States declines.
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Vietnam leads: Thailand’s Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha (left) hands over the gavel for ASEAN chairmanship to Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc during the closing ceremony of the 35th ASEAN Summit in Bangkok on Nov. 4, 2019. (AFP/Lillian Suwanrumpha)
P
eople in Southeast Asia are becoming increasingly concerned the region could turn into a battleground for influence among the world’s superpowers, as anxiety over China’s rise continues to grow while confidence in the United States declines, a new survey has shown.
In total, 73.2 percent of respondents interviewed by the ASEAN Studies Center at the Singapore-based ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute said they were worried the region “is becoming an arena of major power competition” and that countries in the region “may become proxies for the interests of major powers”.
"Southeast Asians look to ASEAN to preserve the region's independence and strategic autonomy by staying united and [resilient] in the face of increasing major power rivalry," said Tang Siew Mun, head of the ASEAN Studies Center and lead author of the survey. "[They] remain disappointed that the tangible benefits of community-building and economic integration have not been felt directly on the ground level."
The survey polled 1,308 respondents from 10 ASEAN countries from Nov. 12 to Dec. 1 last year. In the survey, which aimed to collate the perceptions of Southeast Asians on regional affairs, respondents were pooled from five professional categories: research, business and finance, public sector, civil society and the media.
The US-China rivalry is framed by a trade war that has restricted global growth and sowed seeds of uncertainty across the economies of Asia, with 41.4 percent of respondents expressing concern the trade war “will spark a global economic downturn”, the report found.
The survey was published just as top ASEAN diplomats, including Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi, head to the coastal city of Nha Trang in southern Vietnam on Thursday for a closed-door retreat session, where they will be able to candidly discuss national and regional concerns. The meeting will be the first under Vietnam’s chairmanship of ASEAN, which rotates annually.
Vietnam has chosen the theme “cohesive and responsive” for its chairmanship this year, a year that will see the country take on the dual roles of ASEAN chair and nonpermanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
