The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) recently released an assessment of the possible ramifications of the US presidential election results next month which will have a profound effect on the region and the Philippines, which is at the center of a maritime conflict.
The report cited Southeast Asia as being at the forefront of US-China strategic competition and is increasingly vital to US economic goals.
The Philippines, however, is not grabbing a share corresponding to the role it has been playing in the regional rivalry.
With US companies diversifying supply chains from China, the Vietnamese economy has led the way in attracting new investments, CSIS Southeast Asia Program and Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative Director Gregory Poling said.
The Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries, especially Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, are working to grow their piece of the pie, the report noted.
Each of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members will play a vital role in at least some of the industries on which the next US administration will focus, it said.
Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam will have a role in critical minerals; Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam in semiconductor manufacturing; Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam in battery and electric vehicle production; and every one of these countries in various parts of the digital economy, including undersea cable landings and AI deployment, it added.
Alongside economic heft, Southeast Asia will play a crucial role in the normative competition between Washington and Beijing.
“As the most rapidly growing part of the nonaligned world, or Global South, and the one most intimately familiar with China, Southeast Asia will have an outsized influence on debates over rules, norms, and institutions,” the report said.
Poling said it is hard to envision China or the West winning any debates over the future of the rules-based order without carrying a majority of Southeast Asian votes.
“Expect a President Harris or a President Trump to focus early and often on outreach to the region’s major players, especially Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam,” the report added.
The new US president would need to come up with the right policy toward the Philippines in the first 100 days as did the Biden administration.
In 2021, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Manila on his first trip to Asia, prioritizing getting the US-Philippines alliance back on track.
The report indicated that the alliance at that time remained brittle and struggled to push back against China’s aggression in the South China Sea.
Poling described the turnaround in the quality of the alliance since then as remarkable, and it is “at its strongest in at least five decades.”
But Beijing has retaliated with even more aggression, hoping to compel either Manila or Washington to buckle under the pressure, he said.
The violence China has employed against the Philippines since late 2023 will compel the next US administration to put the South China Sea at the top of its priorities in the region.
In August, Chinese vessels rammed and severely damaged two Philippine Coast Guard ships. Several weeks earlier, a People’s Liberation Army fighter jet dropped flares into the path of a Philippine patrol plane, risking the lives of its crew. And in mid-June, Chinese forces attacked two Philippine Navy rigid-hull inflatable boats with axes and knives, injuring eight sailors, including one who lost his thumb.
“These are only the most recent incidents in a monthly pattern of aggression,” Poling pointed out.
(To be continued)