America Is Losing Southeast Asia | Why U.S. Allies in the Region Are Turning To…

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 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.

This drop in support for the United States should sound alarm bells in Washington, which sees China as its main competitor and the Indo-Pacific as a critical battleground. Southeast Asia lies at the geographic heart of this vast and dynamic region. It is home to two U.S. allies (the Philippines and Thailand) and several important partners. United States’ goals in the Indo-Pacific are hampered by the loss of ground to China.

The Philippines and Singapore, where the United States has military facilities, would be particularly important in the event of outright conflict between China and the United States, but short of war, China’s growing sway in Southeast Asia still dampens America’s ability to engage bilaterally and multilaterally to strategic effect.

Many Southeast Asian countries are not liberal democracies, and governments there do not necessarily implement foreign policies that reflect public opinion. But the group polled included government officials, and even illiberal democracies now feel pressure to respond to citizens’ views.

🔗 https://archive.ph/AwNlR