Beijing’s recent moves to establish security cooperation with Pacific island states have riled the US and Australia. Among the places that China has made moves is the Solomon Islands, where Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and US security advisor Kurt Campbell have each visited within the past three months. ASEAN needs to closely watch the ongoing great power competition there to draw lessons for its own security.
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ASEAN and its constituent states must not neglect the crucial importance of maintaining a balance of influence and power between the great powers to secure space for their own independence. However, it can only make the most of its strategic endowments through greater unity of purpose and managing the sensitivities of treading on China's toes by endorsing new US-sponsored security arrangements.
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Twenty years after the historic 9/11 attacks on the US, the threat of terrorism has largely been contained and a new era of great power competition has returned. ISEAS researcher Daljit Singh notes that in the past century, the US has been adamant about not letting any single power dominate East Asia, and will most probably continue to do so. What will this new era be like when the US's competitor is a rising China? And what can Southeast Asian states do about it?
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It is easy to find fault with the recently declassified version of the US’s strategic framework for the Indo-Pacific. The fact remains, however, that the US is making strategic adjustments to steel itself for years, if not decades, of strategic competition with China.
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ISEAS academic Daljit Singh notes that the new great power contest has spilled over into the Indian Ocean, and the term “Indo-Pacific” will better reflect the strategic geography of this central theatre of the 21st century great power struggle.
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While a lot of attention is currently on cross-strait relations and a possible hot war between Taiwan and mainland China, ISEAS academic Daljit Singh points out that the disputed India-China land border, more than the East or South China Sea, is the regional flashpoint that could flare up in the short term.
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A checklist of the differences Southeast Asia can expect if Joe Biden wins the US presidential election or Donald Trump is returned to the White House.
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A new report by the White House has cast China as an ideological threat to cherished liberties and the American way of life. This is a bipartisan approach that will endure even if President Donald Trump loses his bid for a second term.
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Has China won control of the South China Sea? Senior Fellow Daljit Singh of the ISEAS - Yusof Ishak Institute opines that with the US' toughening stance towards China and an increased danger of a clash from naval and coast guard vessels that often operate at close quarters, China has not won yet.