Commentary: How Biden can work with countries that can't afford to alienate China

along the upper reaches of the Mekong River gives it a potential stranglehold over the five ASEAN members through which the river runs.

Southeast Asian countries generally welcomed Biden’s bold correction of a 20-year-old error in Afghanistan to refocus on the more strategically important Indo-Pacific, even if the botched evacuation evoked echoes of the United States’ withdrawal from Vietnam and reawakened old concerns about the reliability of US commitments.

Even if they are not prepared to say so publicly, other Southeast Asian countries, too, now better understand that they have no option but to rely on US power to maintain a balance in the region. Singapore’s Yusof Ishak Institute of Southeast Asian Studies 2022 State of Southeast Asia Survey, a survey of elite opinion in the ten ASEAN member states, showed that 63 per cent of those surveyed welcomed US regional, political and strategic influence and 52 per cent trusted the United States to do the right thing to contribute to global peace, security, prosperity and governance. Only 19 per cent said the same about China.

There is clearly an opening for the Biden administration to improve the US position in Southeast Asia if it chooses to take it.The most obvious gap in US policy in the Indo-Pacific is economic. Despite China’s growing economic weight in Southeast Asia, the United States remains an important bilateral economic partner for most ASEAN members and a preferred source for quality non-infrastructure investment, particularly at the technologically higher end of the value chain.

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