By: Khanh Vu Duc
Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit to Manila this week— attending the ASEAN Post-Ministerial Conference, the East Asia Summit Foreign Ministers’ Meeting, and the ASEAN Regional Forum — highlights a crucial geopolitical reality: while the Taiwan Strait and the first island chain remain vital to regional security, the long-term balance of power in the Indo-Pacific may ultimately depend on strategic choices made across Southeast Asia.
Global attention centers on China’s military modernization, America’s alliances, and Taiwan risk. Less examined is China’s quieter contest to shape ASEAN’s strategic orientation. Beijing’s approach appears pragmatic: not expelling the United States from Asia but preventing a cohesive regional coalition capable of balancing Chinese influence, preferring to deal with Southeast Asian nations on a bilateral basis rather than as a unified bloc, which allows it to leverage its immense economic size.
By forging closer ties with more receptive or dependent states such as Cambodia, Laos, and Malaysia, Beijing is ensuring that the bloc is stymied in attempting to achieve consensus needed to issue unified criticisms or counter-pressures. By benefiting from ASEAN’s preference for strategic autonomy and non-alignment, China is advancing its interests without directly confronting Washington’s alliance network.
This competition transcends military power. It focuses on economic influence, political credibility, technological partnerships and the shaping of regional norms and institutions.
The United States holds strong cards. Alliances with Japan and South Korea remain enduring pillars of its Indo-Pacific strategy. Security ties with the Philippines have deepened significantly, and Australia continues as a vital partner. These relationships anchor the first island chain. Yet they cannot alone determine the broader Indo-Pacific order. ASEAN is central.
ASEAN’s Strategic Weight
ASEAN is neither a military alliance nor a unified bloc. It is a diplomatic community rooted in consensus, sovereignty, and strategic autonomy. Its 11 member states span diverse political systems, economic priorities, and threat perceptions. What unites them is not a common security policy, but a shared commitment to regional stability and resistance to excessive dependence on any major power.
The Philippines has strengthened defense cooperation with Washington as a treaty ally. Singapore maintains close security ties with the United States while avoiding formal alliances. Thailand balances its longstanding US alliance with diversified engagement. Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and others prioritize strategic autonomy and diversified partnerships.
For Beijing, outright alignment is unnecessary. It may be sufficient that ASEAN sustains its aversion to great-power rivalry and avoids the formation of a unified balancing coalition, a preference that aligns naturally with ASEAN’s longstanding doctrine of flexibility and non-alignment.
The Weight of Economic Geography
China enjoys significant structural advantages in Southeast Asia. As ASEAN’s largest trading partner, China is deeply embedded in regional supply chains, manufacturing, infrastructure, energy and digital networks. Geography reinforces this advantage: China is a permanent neighbor, while the United States remains an external Pacific power. When neutrality pairs with deepening economic interdependence with Beijing, Washington’s military strengths become harder to translate into sustained political influence.
Deterrence remains essential, but long-term leverage demands economic engagement, technological cooperation, institutional trust, and persistent diplomacy.
The key question is not whether ASEAN states will choose Washington or Beijing, but whether they can preserve real space for independent decisions. If that space narrows under the weight of economic dependence, neutrality may gradually evolve into de facto alignment—even without formal treaties or political declarations.
Three Models of Strategic Hedging
Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore exemplify distinct hedging approaches, with Vietnam confronting direct maritime pressure in the South China Sea.
Hanoi balances growing economic ties with China against deepened partnerships with the United States, Japan, Australia, India, and Europe. Its “Four Nos” policy — no formal alliances, no foreign bases, and no alignment with any major power — safeguards autonomy. However, flexibility without domestic resilience and credible alternatives risks turning into vulnerability. Vietnam remains one of the most important counterweights to Chinese maritime assertiveness among ASEAN claimant states. Sustaining this role requires ongoing modernization, institutional strength, and economic capacity.
Indonesia represents autonomy rooted in scale and leadership. As ASEAN’s largest member by population, economy, and territory, Jakarta follows its “free and active” foreign policy tradition. It avoids alignment while preserving ASEAN centrality and preventing any single power from dominating the regional order. Although facing fewer direct confrontations than Vietnam, particularly around the North Natuna Sea, Indonesia wields influence through demographic weight, diplomacy and institutional shaping.
Singapore builds autonomy on institutional strength and global connectivity. It welcomes a sustained US security presence while maintaining deep economic links with China. Singapore’s leaders reject Cold War binaries, positioning the city-state as a pragmatic bridge and global hub, a model that maximizes maneuverability in an increasingly competitive environment.
Together, these cases demonstrate that hedging is not indecision. It is deliberate statecraft — tailored efforts by large and small states to maximize agency amid great-power rivalry.
Washington’s Diplomatic Imperative
Rubio’s visit highlights the distinct challenge for US diplomacy. Reassuring allies is familiar terrain. Engaging non-aligned partners requires nuance. Most ASEAN governments prioritize development, stability, and autonomy. They view China as a neighbor, competitor, and vital economic partner simultaneously.
The United States need not create an anti-China bloc. It must demonstrate that closer partnership expands — rather than restricts — Southeast Asian choices. This calls for initiatives beyond defense: resilient supply chains, digital governance, technological standards, infrastructure, education exchanges, and support for maritime rights. The goal is an open, independent ASEAN capable of resisting coercion while preserving strategic flexibility.
The Decisive Arena
ASEAN’s refusal to choose sides may prove one of the defining factors in the Indo-Pacific balance. Neutrality is not pro-China. Yet under conditions of China’s economic weight and geographic proximity, it can produce asymmetric outcomes. Southeast Asian states seek neither dependence on Washington nor Beijing. Meaningful autonomy requires economic resilience, diversified partnerships, and institutional credibility.
The institutional and economic rules that solidify in this decade will shape not only the regional balance of power, but also the range of choices available to the next generation of Southeast Asians.
The region’s future will not be settled by naval power or alliances alone. It will be decided in ASEAN’s diplomatic, economic, and institutional space — the true strategic center of gravity in US –China competition. The first island chain remains indispensable for security. But the broader contest for regional order will increasingly be shaped in Southeast Asia, the strategic center of the Indo-Pacific century.
Khanh Vu Duc is a frequent contributor to Asia Sentinel. He is a lawyer and part-time law professor at the University of Ottawa who researches on Vietnamese politics, international relations, and international law.
ASEAN: Strategic Center of Gravity in US–China Rivalry
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