As relations between the United States and China have cooled over the past four years and bilateral tensions have risen over issues ranging from control of advanced semiconductors to Beijing’s support for Moscow, Southeast Asian states have played a delicate game.
With the exception of the Philippines under Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who has effectively sided with the United States despite pushback from China, other major Southeast Asian countries have tried to maintain their traditional approach to hedging between the two superpowers.
So while Vietnam signed a deal with the Biden administration to improve US-Vietnam relations, it immediately turned around by hosting Chinese leader Xi Jinping and also improved China-Vietnam relations. Similarly, while Indonesia’s Prabowo Subianto oversaw growing security ties with the US as Defense Minister in Joko Widodo’s second government; he made his first overseas trip to China as president-elect.
