At Shangri-La Dialogue 2024, Rival US-China Visions Harden
At Shangri-La Dialogue 2024, Rival US-China Visions Harden
Plus coming Indo-Pacific talks; new subsea cable grouping; post-shock growth trajectory; fresh AI ban chatter; mega-infra traction and much, much more.
Greetings to new readers and welcome all to the latest edition of the weekly ASEAN Wonk BulletBrief! If you haven’t already, you can upgrade to a paid subscription for $5 a month/$50 a year below to receive full posts by inserting your email address and then selecting an annual or monthly option. You can visit this page for more on pricing for institutions, groups as well as discounts. For current paid subscribers, please make sure you’re hitting the “view entire message” prompt if it comes up at the end of a post to see the full version.
For this iteration of ASEAN Wonk BulletBrief, we are looking at:
Assessing the geopolitical and geoeconomic significance of rivaling U.S.-China visions and key official regional interventions at a major Asia defense summit;
Mapping of regional developments, such as coming Indo-Pacific talks and a new China-backed canal groundbreaking amid regional concerns;
Charting evolving geopolitical, geoeconomic and security trends including post-shock growth trajectories; a new subsea cable grouping and an emerging cross-regional economic pact;
Tracking and analysis of industry developments and quantitative indicators such as fresh AI ban chatter; traction on an infrastructure megaproject; and evolving sectoral regional competition;
And much more! ICYMI, check out our post earlier this week on how Thailand’s BRICS bid fits in with its wider evolving foreign policy outlook amid challenges at home and abroad;
This Week’s WonkCount: 2,413 words (~11 minutes)
“Act of War” Fears; IPEF Talks; BRICS Ambitions & More
Post-Shock Growth Trajectory; Conflict Management Capacity & Civil War Contestation Landscape
“The region has suffered some of the largest costs in foregone economic progress” in the world, notes a new Southeast Asia interactive data snapshot published by the Lowy Institute looking at the effects of economic shocks on the region. The snapshot notes that while emerging Southeast Asia remains one of the world’s best performing regions, its collective GDP is 12.8 percent smaller today than before the COVID-19 pandemic, which is by far a larger gap than any developing region except South Asia. Within the region, Cambodia and the Philippines suffered especially large economic losses, with their economies more than 20 percent smaller than pre-COVID-19 levels. Thailand’s economy is about 16 percent smaller (link).
Lost Real GDP By Region, 2024 vs. Pre-COVID Forecasts
“As the situation in Myanmar and the South China Sea festers…that more of the same, business-as-usual mindset may not only seriously impair ASEAN’s reputation to effectively manage the region’s affairs, rather may also threaten the many decades of peace and stability that the region has enjoyed,” notes a new piece published by Indonesia’s former foreign minister Marty Natalegawa on renewing regional conflict management capacity (link).
“Out of 51 townships that have international land borders, only one is under stable junta control,” observes a new briefing paper on effective control in Myanmar released by the Special Advisory Council for Myanmar. The paper calls for a series of recommendations rooted in the need for actors to recognize and respond to “new and emerging realities” including fundamental shifts in contestation and control in Myanmar and the lack of clarity over how conflict will be brought to an end (link).
International Border Control Shifts, Per SAC-M Report
At Shangri-La Dialogue 2024, Warring US-China Visions Harden
What’s Behind It
China and the United States advanced differing visions of Asia at a key regional defense summit dominated by the theme of cross-regional security issues including the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Gaza wars. Speaking on June 1, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin painted a picture of a shared Asian future with a “new convergence” in Indo-Pacific partnerships and connectivities with Europe and the Middle East, alongside publicizing planned announcements including a coming trilateral U.S.-Japan-ROK exercise plan and a new regional defense industrial base initiative1. In contrast, on June 2, Chinese Defense Minister Dong Jun, in his debut at the Shangri-La Dialogue, attempted to speak for all of Asia in advancing China’s six-point approach to building a regional security framework, while warning Taiwan was in “a dangerous situation” and that South China Sea provocations by “a certain country” (read: the Philippines) would “backfire” as it ignored regional interests and violated the ASEAN charter2. Those articulations of contrasting visions — paired with other engagements — were at play even as Austin and Dong had met earlier on May 31 in the first in-person talks between defense chiefs since 20223.
Headline Developments at 2024 Shangri-La Dialogue
This came amid other headline-grabbing events across the seven plenary sessions over the three-day Shangri-La Dialogue. Indonesia President-elect Prabowo Subianto, whose attendance ASEAN Wonk understands had not been confirmed until closer to when the SLD was set to commence, proposed a new Israel-Gaza peace plan with greater caution than his more off-the-cuff Russia-Ukraine plan last year, citing that he had been cleared by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo to announce Indonesia’s ability to provide peacekeepers and immediate treatment for 1,000 patients and would defer to Jokowi on whether Jakarta would send a representative to an upcoming Ukraine peace conference in Switzerland later this month4. President Marcos delivered a calibrated keynote address emphasizing the domestic, regional and global stakes in the Philippines’ approach to the South China Sea, part of what officials back in Manila have been billing an effort to rebut China’s efforts to portray Manila as a ‘lonely puppet troublemaker’ egged on by Washington and isolated from other ASEAN states5.
Why It Matters
Both Washington and Beijing face their own challenges in advancing these respective visions, and this was evident in some of the other interventions. Austin’s Indo-Pacific “convergence” speech downplayed concerns even among some U.S. partners about the direction of Washington’s China policy; while Dong’s speech feeds into existing worries within the region about China-first concepts being placed in an Asia-first disguise. Of all the remarks delivered at this year’s SLD, Australian Defense Minister Richard Marles arguably summed up concerns on both ends the best when he said that China needed to accept that its behavior will be more scrutinized as a great power on issues such as Ukraine and the South China Sea, but that Australia would also not accept a strategic order being contingent on containment or “the internal order of states,” amid ongoing public debates in Washington about the end state of U.S. China policy and the extent to which regime type matters6.
Other key interventions by Indo-Pacific states also provided a window into significant datapoints to watch in Asia’s evolving security landscape (see two tables below summarizing major datapoints, along with more on the future prospects in the “Where It’s Headed” section. Paid subscribers can read on thereafter to the remaining sections of our weekly ASEAN Wonk BulletBrief).
Key Datapoints from Shangri-La Dialogue Official Interventions
