ASEAN Wonk
The ASEAN Wonk Podcast
Episode 13: Power and Diplomacy in Southeast Asia Geopolitics
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Episode 13: Power and Diplomacy in Southeast Asia Geopolitics

One of the region’s top ex-diplomats sheds light on Southeast Asia geopolitical futures between Global South hype and US-China bifurcation fears.

[Note: This is the free preview within the dedicated podcast section of the ASEAN Wonk website, with the full version in a post published on January 16, 2025 available to our paying subscribers. This is not meant to serve as new content and is part of our free preview content within the dedicated website podcast section].

INTRODUCTION

ASEAN Wonk: Welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, where we bring you expert insights and regional perspectives on Southeast Asia and Indo-Pacific geopolitics and geoeconomics. I'm your host, Dr. Prashanth Parameswaran. If you haven’t already, do subscribe to the ASEAN Wonk platform so you don't miss all our posts.

Our guest today is Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan, who served as a Singapore diplomat for over three decades, including as permanent secretary of the foreign ministry, permanent Representative to the United Nations and ambassador to Russia. We start our conversation talking about how Southeast Asian countries are positioning themselves in the shifting global order. Make sure you watch, listen, or read the full episode as we go through a number of other subjects, including contingencies related to Taiwan, flashpoint management and Southeast Asia’s geoeconomic prospects going forward.

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SOUTHEAST ASIA AND THE SHIFTING GLOBAL ORDER

ASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast Bilahari. Thank you for joining us, and let's get started. Southeast Asia, as you've written, is no stranger to major power competition. There are various ways to characterize US-China competition today and the state of the global order. If you look at the Lowy Institute's Asia Power Index, it's very clear the United States and China are in kind of in a league of their own, but then you have a range of other powers as well that sit below that, which is a complex regional landscape. You've suggested that the order you see is kind of a version of dynamic multipolarity – there are different versions of that and what that means. But the key is that it's very different from some of the other analogies that have been advanced, including notions of a new Cold War, which was quite different historically, and also not very cold in Southeast Asia in terms of some of the conflicts that occurred there. What is your sense of the global order today moving forward? And what are Southeast Asia's stakes within it?

Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan: Yeah. Let me make one general point first about global order in general. I think it is a fundamental mistake to think about global order as necessarily reflecting our consensus. If you look throughout history, whatever order we had was defined by contest and efforts to create parameters for those contests so they were minimally dangerous, shall we say. And that was certainly the case for the forty odd years of the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. I think you know my views on this. I think that to call the US-China competition a new cold war is really intellectually sloppy and lazy. Because there are superficial similarities, of course, but they are superficial. It's fundamentally different.

The Cold War, the US-Soviet Union Cold War, was one between two systems. It was an existential struggle to see which was the better way of organizing modern industrial society. I think that that debate has been settled. And you're not going to revive it by trying to impose this rather artificial framework of democracy versus authoritarianism on US-China relations. Yeah. China is authoritarian, but it's authoritarian in its own way. There are many variants of authoritarianism. Just as there are many variants – in fact more variants – of democracy. So I think the US-China competition is a competition not between two systems, but within a single global system. They are both vital parts of this system. I don't think they can bifurcate into two separate systems.

There will be partial bifurcation. It's already happening. And neither the US nor China is particularly comfortable with their interdependency because it exposes their vulnerabilities. They're both trying to mitigate it. And you know how they're trying to do it. US is trying to be less reliant on China and its supply chains, and China is trying to be more self-reliant in certain technologies. And I think both are going to fail, or at least they're not going to succeed to the extent they hope.

“There will be partial bifurcation. It's already happening.”

But I think this is good news for Southeast Asia because competition between systems is binary. Your choice is a or b. And that was much of the case during the Cold War, which as you have pointed out, was really hot in Southeast Asia. So even those of us that pretended to be non-aligned, we knew where our bread was buttered. Competition within the system as it exists between the US and China today is not binary, it's complex. And in complexity, there is at least in principle more opportunity to exercise agency. And, you know, Southeast Asia, as you pointed out, has lived in the midst of major power competition for centuries. And it's nothing new. This is just the latest iteration of what is probably a natural phenomenon for a region that is a strategic crossroads between two major oceans and therefore trade routes, energy routes, supply routes, and so on.

In complexity, there is opportunity to exercise agency. And that's in principle, what all Southeast Asian countries, with one or two exceptions, try to do. Now I don't say we always do it very well. And there have been some disastrous mistakes in recent Southeast Asian history, particularly in the sixties and seventies. But I think we can cope pretty well as long as we each maintain a very clear idea of our national interest and look out for and maintain the agility. The agility to either seize opportunities to advance our national interest or get out of harm's way in good time. And I think by and large, most Southeast Asian countries with a couple of exceptions are doing that with various degrees of success, but generally, successfully.

INTRAREGIONAL BALANCE OF POWER

ASEAN Wonk: Right. And that's an important characterization that you made there in terms of there being opportunities and agency for Southeast Asian states, but a lot of it depends on how these countries actually exercise that. And a lot of that depends on individual governments, leaderships and regimes. I'm wondering if we can talk a little bit about the intra-regional balance of power within Southeast Asia, which you, as a practitioner, also experienced. And sometimes I think this is a little bit taken for granted for those who don't know the region well. So if you look at aggregate indicators, there are always these characterizations like Southeast Asia is the fifth largest economy now collectively; it’s going to be the fourth largest economy – depending on which estimate you look at – by 2040 for example. But I'm also interested in your thoughts about the intra-regional balance of power. Since the end of the Cold War, we've seen really the, for lack of a better term, the two sub-regional giants, right – a democratized Indonesia in maritime Southeast Asia, and then Vietnam in mainland Southeast Asia –get a lot of attention in terms of some of growth rates relative to where it was in the sort of pre-Cold War sort of days, for example. But there are obviously long standing intra-regional tensions as well, and dynamics that periodically pop up. And you do have other powers as well in those regions like Malaysia, Thailand, so on and so forth. So if you're a policymaker or an expert who's looking at the region sort of from the outside in or trying to understand what the region looks like, how would you characterize the intra-regional balance of power going forward, even as Southeast Asia's sort of collective importance continues to rise in the coming decades?

Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan: Alright. I think that's a very important point you have raised. When outside observers – whether in the United States or China or Japan or Europe – look at Southeast Asia, they look at ASEAN, first of all, because it is the regional organization. But they don't quite understand that the fundamental and enduring purpose of ASEAN is to manage relations between its members.

Management of external relations has always been primarily a national responsibility. And ASEAN is a secondary factor. Sometimes a bit more important, sometimes less important. This is one of those times where it's less important, but it is always a secondary factor. The primary purpose of ASEAN is to manage this intra-regional balance, the intra-regional tensions, some of which have very long historical roots, and some of them start from very primordial things like race, language, religion, and therefore, they are never going to go away.

And I think from that point of view, ASEAN has been terribly successful. You just think about the state of Southeast Asia. I'll just use Singapore as an example. We had independence thrust upon us in 1965. Now what was the state of Southeast Asia in 1965. Think about it. First of all, the cold war was hot, very hot on mainland Southeast Asia. Secondly, Singapore had just been asked to leave Malaysia and the relationship was fraught with racial tension. Indonesia was still fighting an undeclared war against Malaysia and when we were separated from Malaysia, Singapore as well. And there was a very active claim over a very large chunk of Malaysia by Philippines to Sabah. And there were irredentist pressures on the fringes of Malaysia and Thailand, West Malaysia and Thailand, and on the fringes of the eastern parts of Indonesia and the southern parts of the Philippines. If I may summarize, we were a mess. You're probably too young, but I recall when it was very common for analysts to refer to Southeast Asia as the “Balkans of Asia” right?

Now look at the same state today. We still have problems, of course. But it is primarily a growth region and the problems are manageable. And I think a very large part of that is due to ASEAN. Now, many of the intraregional tensions, as I said, they have primordial roots. They're never going to go away, but they can be managed and they are being managed. Now that said, I must also make a qualification to agree with you. Southeast Asia is a growth region. It's a success story. But to be very honest – and since I'm now a pensioner and not working for anybody, any government – the idea of Southeast Asia collectively being the fifth or fourth largest economy in the world is a bit of an artificial construct. It is still ten national economies very largely despite ASEAN's plans for having a common production platform, a customs unit kind of thing. We haven't abandoned those plans, but progress has been extremely slow. And progress has been extremely slow because the domestic politics of key ASEAN members has become extremely complicated. More and more complicated. And if you can't get a domestic consensus, you're not going to get a regional consensus, or you're going to get a very soft regional consensus.

But we haven't gone backwards. This is still the plan. And I think ASEAN, like, actually every regional organization, does not progress – has never progressed – in a straight line. It progresses by lurches and meanderings. According to responses to specific circumstances, according to developments in the key countries. But I think on the whole, we are doing quite well.

You know, one of the things that actually irritates me a lot about how the West generally looks at Southeast Asia is they look at it as if it's uninhabited region. It looks at it as a blank slate on which it projects its own hopes and fears. It's either a contest between the Soviet Union and the United States. It's a arena. It's either a place where democracy advances or retreats. But, you know, there are quite a lot of people living here. And we have our own ideas about what our life should be like, which do not always coincide with the ideas of external powers. And I think that's where most external powers get into trouble when they go in when they try to engage Southeast Asia as a kind of projection of their own concerns rather than trying to use the very strong regional dynamics – intra-regional dynamics – as means to either advance or defend their interests. You can't impose things.

“[Y]ou know, there are quite a lot of people living here. And we have our own ideas about what our life should be like, which do not always coincide with the ideas of external powers. And I think that's where most external powers get into trouble when they go in when they try to engage Southeast Asia as a kind of projection of their own concerns…”

Look, Southeast Asia has never fallen under the sway of any single power, except for a very short period of Japanese occupation during the Second World War. We knew how that ended. You mentioned earlier a lot of focus on Indonesia and Vietnam. Actually, I was just in Washington DC. This cycle happens quite often. I think there's not enough emphasis on Indonesia, right? It's almost that there's a huge blind spot. A blind spot about two hundred and seventy million people strong. But that said, I think you are right. You can't capture Southeast Asia. Nobody can really capture Southeast Asia unless you capture Vietnam and Indonesia. And it's not a coincidence that these are the two countries that have the strongest sense of their own agency, which is another way of saying these are the two most highly nationalistic countries in Southeast Asia. And I think that's a good thing. That's a healthy thing for the region as a whole and actually for the world.

WHICH SOUTHEAST ASIAN STATES ARE BEST NAVIGATING US-CHINA COMPETITION

ASEAN Wonk: So I wanted to follow up a little bit on what you said earlier, which is there is space for agency in terms of the global order and heightened US-China competition. And that agency is not necessarily evenly distributed. It partly depends on how countries use that how governments and regimes use that. There is a natural competition that goes on sometimes among Southeast Asian countries in terms of navigating that global order, whether it's geopolitical influence or geoeconomic opportunities and semiconductors or critical minerals, so on and so forth. Which Southeast Asian states in your view are best managing or navigating this current geopolitical environment that we're in right now?

Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan: Well, I would I think the three that are doing it best, Vietnam, Indonesia, and my own country, Singapore. I fear that Laos is on the crux of making the same mistake in that they made in the 1960s, with, as you know, quite tragic results for the country. What do I mean by that? If you look back to the 1960s and early 1970s, Laos first, and, to some degree, Cambodia – royalist Laos and royalist Cambodia – first adopted a very passive form of neutrality. You know, basically, laying low and hoping not to be noticed to manage great power competition. And when they did that didn't work. They saw the patron, which is the US. And that didn't work either. Now, what both these strategies – kind of been passive or laying low and hoping for the best and looking for a patron – have in common is that you hand over what agency you have to some external force. With very tragic results, we know.

Now, I fear that Laos in particular has got itself into a situation of path dependency vis a vis China. Now I can't really blame them because, you know, who else is going to invest in Laos on the scale they need. Cambodia is much better. I think Cambodia under Hun Sen and Hun Manet has a much stronger sense of its own national interest. Now when I say exercise agency, I don't mean that you need to be neutral or you need to be even-handed because that's impossible. What I mean is that you have to have a very clear sense of your own national interest, and you pursue them in whichever direction they take you. And you don't have to line up all your ducks neatly in one direction or another. I'll give you an example of what I mean. Singapore. Right? Now unless you've been living under a rock, you should know that in the domain of defense and security, we have chosen long ago. And I don't think we're going to change our choice. On the other hand, on certain political issues – for example, the idea that certain ideas are universal in nature and therefore give external parties some right to interfere in your internal affairs – our attitudes are much more aligned with those of China or even Russia, which disconcerts our Western partners sometimes. And in terms of economics, we are quite omnidirectional, shall we say. We will go in any direction that our interest take us. I mean, prudence and law permitting. And I think that's a very general Southeast Asian attitude.

Some people think I am critical of, say, Laos, which I mentioned, because it's taken a very pro -China route. That's not the point. The point is they are free to choose. They're free to choose as we are free to choose. But they have to choose in their own interest and they should not therefore, having chosen one domain – I think it's perfectly logical for them to go with China in the economic domain because there's nobody else that is going to provide the the level of investment they need – but, however, that should not constrain them from pursuing their interest in other domains if it takes them in different directions.

Now, Malaysia is extremely distracted right now. Its domestic politics is far more complicated than absolutely necessary. To some degree, that could also be said of Thailand. In fact, Thailand has been domestically distracted for the last 15 or 16 years. And that has limited its ability to exercise its agency. I think Indonesia is doing quite well. I think Philippines is doing quite well. But Philippines, as you know, has a tendency to swing from one extreme to another. But that's them, you know, who are we to criticize. But my point is this. However small you are, however weak you are, there is always an opportunity to exercise agency. Otherwise, Singapore should not exist. But we do. And we tend to call it existing.

But the key factor here is one you mentioned. The key factor is your domestic politics, your domestic capabilities to define your interest and pursue them. Your domestic ability to have the agility to pursue your interest in multiple directions according to what those interests are in different domains. Now that's where the ten countries that currently make up Southeast Asia differ quite widely. Quite widely. Actually, widely is not the wrong word, actually. You have on one extreme, perhaps, Laos and the other extreme because we are a small country too, Singapore. And you have all kinds of degrees in between.

TAIWAN CONTINGENCY STAKES AND STATE OF REGIONAL PREPAREDNESS

ASEAN Wonk: I wanted to switch a little bit to talk about some of the future flashpoints and issues and stakes for Southeast Asia. One of them that is dominating the headlines is Taiwan. And beyond the hype around 2027 being when the Chinese military should be prepared for Taiwan contingency, the stakes for Southeast Asia itself as a region is potentially immense as well. Bloomberg estimates the cost to Southeast Asia is about twenty percent of its GDP potentially, and there are hundreds of thousands of overseas workers as well that are in Taiwan. Different countries have different stakes in that. But how do you see the region responding to a potential Taiwan contingency. And obviously, there's various contingencies, uh, and the responses will be diverse depending on those contingencies. And also, what's your sense of how prepared regional states are relatively speaking for this contingency, which is, you know, quite a lot of stakes in terms of where Southeast Asia is and where it's headed?

Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan: Okay. Let me make one general point….

[Note: This is the end of a free preview podcast, with the full version in an earlier post published on January 16, 2025 available to our paying subscribers. This is not meant to serve as new content and is part of our free preview content within the dedicated website podcast section].

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