Lecture III: ASEAN & US-CHINA COMPETITION IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

In my last lecture I argued that the chief priorities of both the US and China are internal and both therefore want to avoid war or serious conflict as they seek a new modus vivendi with each other. At the same time neither will cease to pursue their interests. On a global scale, China is not a clearly revisionist power. But Beijing clearly wants to reclaim something of its historical centrality in East Asia. The US has emphasised that it intends to remain an East Asian power. The strategic challenge for China is therefore how to shift the US from the very centre of the East Asian strategic equation and occupy that space, but without provoking responses from the US and Japan that could jeopardise Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rule. For the US the strategic challenge is how to accommodate China, while reassuring friends and allies that it intends to hold its position without stumbling into conflict. In Southeast Asia, US-China competition in the South China Sea (SCS) has emerged as a proxy for the broader strategic adjustments that are underway.