00:00:03

Duncan McCargo

This is the Nordic Asia podcast.

Welcome to the Nordic Asia podcast, a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region. I'm Duncan McCargo, director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and a professor of political science at the University of Copenhagen. It's fantastic today to be joined by Joseph Liow Chin Yong, who is the Tan Kah Kee Chair in comparative and international politics at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University, where he's also dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. Joseph is well known for his work on the politics and international relations of Southeast Asia and is the author of several books, the most recent of which are ambivalent engagement, the United States and Regional Security in Southeast Asia after the Cold War, which was out from Brookings in 2017, and Religion and Nationalism in Southeast Asia, from Cambridge University Press in 2016. Joseph, welcome to the Nordic Asia podcast.

Thank you.

It's a great pleasure to have you on our show. We've had a lot of discussions lately and had some previous podcasts where we've been talking to people about these old chestnut topics that come up again and again in slightly new forms, great power rivalries in Southeast Asia and beyond. A number of new books recently come out on these topics, and you, of course, have the experience of being at Brookings. So you know what it's like if you're in an American Washington Beltway think tank. I've had this experience many times where I give a talk about, say, Thailand's politics and people say, But isn't this all really just a struggle between China and the US? You know, the local politics of countries like Thailand actually should be read through this sort of great power lens. You must've come across this again and again. How did you feel when you ask those kinds of questions about politics in Southeast Asia?

00:02:05

Joseph Liow

Frankly, Duncan, I think they probably felt like you did. I was just annoyed and irritated. I suppose in a sense, it's a function of how great powers operate and think, and the world, quite literally, they think, revolves around them and everything has to do, especially in the context of great power rivalry, right? Everything's got to do with the other party, the adversary or the competitor being up to something trying to undermine the other party's interests. This, that and the other. And as a result, the often missed the target as far as trying to understand what is happening in the region in the specific countries is concerned. And then when things don't go their way, they kind of turn around and say, you know what happened here, when in fact it was ripe for miscalculation? I think in the case of the US, which you yourself, you're familiar with, this will and the decision maker thinking, it's always a case where, you know, Southeast Asia having it's very difficult to determine the inherent value of Southeast Asia for the United States. What I've come across is that it's easier to make the case to people see from the State Department or the Defense Department or even national security. But but even then, you sometimes find yourself having to make the case in relation to China and Russia, you know, rather than have Southeast Asia sort of out there, so to speak, on its own merit. But when it comes to the other side of the political house, when it comes to Congress, for example, which I have had some interactions with as well, now that one is, you know, nearly impossible to get them to, you know, apart from the handful of caucuses that focus on some aspect or the other on Southeast Asia, like back in the early 2000s and 2010s, its caucuses focusing on Myanmar, focusing on the MIA, the missing in action in Cambodia and Vietnam.

There was a pretty active but small Singapore caucus in ASEAN caucus, but that was pretty much it. Yeah, it's a long way that we'll agree with you that it is very difficult, even even in the case of China, to really sort of get them to think about Southeast Asia on the region's own merits.

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00:04:40

Duncan McCargo

When you say in the case of China, you mean that policy makers in China have the same kind of problem?

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00:04:46

Joseph Liow

Yes. I think, well, in China, perhaps it's less pronounced. I think in China, what what a challenge there is that no one there is far less developed sort of Southeast Asian studies tradition. I mean, whatever we say about the United States or Europe for that matter and the erosion of our interests and expertise in Southeast Asian studies, there was a time where there was fairly healthy vision of that. But in the case of China, I think they're still trying to develop that expertise. It's not very strong. That's the first sort of challenge. The second challenge is the way China looks at Southeast Asia. I think if you were just focusing on old school geopolitics, you would see that Southeast Asia is kind of like China's backyard, right? Right. And it is. But over and above that I think the Chinese see Southeast Asia as a natural arena of their influence, in large part because of the strong cultural and historical networks and tradition in and interactions that they have had in the region. Now that's great when we wanted to talk about how, you know, cultures can meet and intermingle and things like that. But when people talk about China and it's what they call the civilizational outlook,

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00:06:17

Duncan McCargo

these grandiose notions like ecological civilization.

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00:06:20

Joseph Liow

Exactly, exactly. So if it's not like that and indeed, if they think in that manner through through such lenses, view the world, then it follows right, that when they look at Southeast Asia, they will see that as a natural place where they have long had a very strong cultural signature. And that should logically sort of translate to various other kinds of linkages, including economic, political. And that's something that Southeast Asia is up against today when it comes to dealing with the Chinese. So to kind of different versions of great power outlooks towards Southeast Asia, neither of which is particularly encouraging.

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00:07:08

Duncan McCargo

Indeed, in China's case, this also is an added asset or complication. The fact that most countries in Southeast Asia and of course, Singapore looms very large. You have significant populations of people of Chinese ethnicity and descent. And how does that factor into this understanding or misunderstanding between China and Southeast Asia?

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00:07:28

Joseph Liow

Yeah, I mean, it does create a whole different level of complexity. I mean, Singapore more so than the rest because we are of the only Chinese ethnic Chinese majority population outside of Greater China. And we have, you know, this is the funny thing, right? The whole national identity building story of Singapore was predicated on trying to create a Singapore identity. Understandably so. But part of that process was also about keeping alive the sort of cultural identities of ethnic groups, which is fine, except that now you're dealing with an external power that thrives on its cultural connections. We have various Diaspora communities across the world, but primarily in East Asia and Southeast Asia. And this has created that complication where you have a segment of the population that is very, if not sentimental, certainly sympathetic towards the Chinese view of things. And you know, that creates challenges when you want to identify a very clear Singapore perspective, you know, not one that hews to the US. Not one accused the new China, but in really an expression of of Singapore's own sort of interest rate, say that has been complicated by this sort of cultural connection in Southeast Asia. I think it's most evident in Singapore, less so in the case of Malaysia or Philippines or Thailand, right? It really is Singapore that is facing this.

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00:09:17

Duncan McCargo

Right. I mean, how how much negotiating power or agency do the individual nations of Southeast Asia have when faced with this standoff, as it were these increasingly tense standoff between the United States and China because in terms of size and military power, I mean, Singapore is obviously an extreme example because it's a very small country. But none of the countries of Southeast Asia is in any way able to stand on its own sort of feet in defense terms vis-a-vis either of these major powers. So what kind of dynamic does the presence of these two looming? I don't know whether we should call China a superpower now, but these two looming very large nations. What kind of effect does that have psychologically on the consciousness of countries that have had, you know, a difficult history that in many cases have been involved in wars during the Cold War and so on? What's the psychological impact of two large entities breathing down the backs of small Southeast Asian countries?

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00:10:20

Joseph Liow

That's a very good question. I think you're absolutely right. If you want to sort of aggregate all the so-called power indices, right began to other income being, I mean, it's it's a non-starter. It's nauseating to China, let alone the US, I suppose, from the from the Southeast Asian narrative. If you look at the long duration, the longer duration, it's not the position that the region is in. It's not particularly unique to Southeast Asia has been in this situation before dealing with external powers. From then on, the possibility of China and India through colonialism. The Second World War, Cold War, you name it. Right. So in that respect, Southeast Asian politics and societies have had to deal with great power interests, external powers, you know, trying to shape the neighbourhood and influence dynamics in the neighbourhood. But having said that, I think the challenge for Southeast Asia in this modern era is for that 10 or 11, depending on whether you want to see more, do more or less in the picture for them to essentially try to derive a similar outlook towards the United States and China, as someone used to say for Southeast Asia dealing with the US and China. You either hang together or you hang individually. And I think there's a lot of truth in that particular statement. So what great power rivalry and competition is doing today is holding a mirror to Southeast Asia or ASEAN, if you want to put it ended, is holding a mirror up to us and letting ASEAN have a look at the state of its own regional coherence and unity. And the picture is not particularly great. And I think the Southeast Asian leaders themselves will admit that it certainly could have been much better, but at least one poll, I think in this sort of bipolar structure, if we can call it that, you know, the Chinese have actually demonstrated before that given their familiarity with how ASEAN diplomacy operates.

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00:12:43

Joseph Liow

You know, you can get your way. You don't have to work on the entire organization to sort of, you know, have things lean in a direction that is favorable to you. You just have to work on one or two states. And this, I think, is one of the challenges that ASEAN versus its in its effort to price unity above all else know or being above consensus that resolute and robust commitment to ASEAN unity has created this conundrum where it's so difficult to achieve it. But if you don't, it creates all sorts of problems for the region. And yeah, and that's the situation that the region is in, unfortunately.

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00:13:26

Duncan McCargo

Yes, we don't. You know, I think many of us were even those who didn't, who don't follow the twists and turns of ASEAN particularly closely, which I would confessed to being in that category were slightly taken aback. I think it was in 2012 when the they failed to reach yet to issue a communique under the Cambodian chairmanship, with widespread speculation that the Cambodians that basically been nobbled by the Chinese not to say anything controversial about the South China Seas. It seems that since that moment now almost a decade ago, ASEAN hasn't managed to get back together the pieces of of a very convincing unity. The ASEAN way increasingly seems like a plural way, with some countries, notably Vietnam, going very much into an anti-Chinese or critical of Chinese direction, others adopting a. Very much softer stance than others sitting in the middle, squirming and trying not to commit themselves to saying anything very much. I mean, you're absolutely right, and I think that one danger that Southeast Asian governments should probably avoid that is putting all their eggs in the Asian basket and to be fair to them. I don't think any Southeast Asian government does that. I mean, ASEAN is a, you know, it's good to have all this diplomatic passing chicken soup for the soul. Indeed. But you know, it's useful to a point. But when it comes, sometimes when it comes to dealing with some critical issues, the harsh reality is that ASEAN is not even a case that ASEAN is not up to it. You could even see that ASEAN is not designed to deal with some of these issue. So because of that, Southeast Asian states have been trying to look at other alternatives so they build their own sort of mini laterals and trilateral and bilaterals with other powers, including the US and China themselves, in order to sort of strengthen their individual positions vis-a-vis this changing landscape. And it's I think it's perfectly understandable that they are doing that, and it's probably a wise thing to do because I honestly don't see ASEAN getting the region or were some very trying problems. I mean, like the South China Sea, where sort of we should supposedly be on the cusp of the declaration of conduct with the Chinese three years ago, when Singapore was the chair and announced that they set a timeline to complete the deal, see in three years, and that was mid-year. So we're talking about this year, 2020. From what I know, there are still quite a ways off from completing a proper draft, let alone getting everyone to agree to it. But at any rate, even if a deal is completed, I think no one who has even the slightest inkling of that issue would be thinking that the EEOC would be this sort of robust, legally binding document that would bring closure on the issue.

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00:16:37

Joseph Liow

Right. So this is an example of of a regional issue that is not going to be solved by ASEAN at best. ASEAN can help manage it. Even then, we don't know. Certainly, it's not going to resolve it.

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00:16:51

Duncan McCargo

Yes. So what do you make of the as it were, the framing and even the nomenclature of us views of what I used to call Asia these days? But as we may have not, we used to talk about a pivot to Asia. Asia seems to have gone Joseph, and we now have something called the Indo-Pacific, which the Australians have obviously always been trying to tell us that it was the Pacific and not Asia for reasons that you don't understand. And of course, the Indonesians and the Indians rather like Indo-Pacific because it suggests the world very much centred on them. But as somebody who's spent most of my life working in the field of Asian studies, I'm rather alarmed by the disappearance or the cancel. Asia has been cancelled. So how does it seem from a Southeast Asian point of view when people, especially in the US and now in Europe as well, adopt this language of the Indo-Pacific, which seems to gloss over a lot of nuance and complexity?

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00:17:45

Joseph Liow

And indeed, we can just see our potential funding for Asian studies go right. Right? But you're right, you do not get countries like India and even Indonesia. Indonesia was was pretty thrilled when that concept started to gain currency because

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00:18:01

Duncan McCargo

I first heard about that front when Marty Natalegawa came and spoke to me and I was chairing his talk and he started talking about the Pacific. And I heard people say that they were really going to talk about Indo-Pacific. And eight years on, everybody's only talking about Indo-Pacific. Exactly, exactly. You remember back then, right when they came up with this idea? How do you got traction in right, let alone you get traction elsewhere in Southeast Asia or Asia for that? But now everyone's talking about it. Why is that?

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00:18:29

Joseph Liow

So I have a very simple and possibly simplistic view on this. And it's simply that it was a position that it wasn't conceived of by the Americans, by the Trump administration, but it was articulate that in a very definitive way by the Trump administration. And if you are trying to get the United States to be engaged in the region and the United States has articulated its terms of its engagement in free and open Indo-Pacific, what are you going to do? Are you going to reject it or try to find some way to fit that notion into the lexicon that prevails in the region? So. You notice that. And this is the funny thing, historically Southeast Asia or Asia, and for that matter, historically, ASEAN has been very averse to any extra regional attempt to articulate a conception of the region. Wonders whether it's Japanese, Australian, right Soviet. You know, it's always a case that, you know, ASEAN's response will be a non-starter because it didn't come from ASEAN, and it doesn't have ASEAN Central to be at its core. And we can easily enumerate a number of these. But when the Indo-Pacific was first articulated by the first Abe administration in Tokyo, it didn't get much traction either. But when Trump articulated it within 11 months, ASEAN came up with the ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific. Remember the A180? The fact that ASEAN can come up with that within 11 months, you know, within a calendar year is quite impressive when organization lightning speed? Yeah, exactly right. So to me, it's telling of how important ASEAN thought it was to engage this concept, regardless of the reservations that the region might have of it.

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00:20:30

Joseph Liow

You know, and truth be told, there were quite a lot of reservations, not just of which was how it would be seen as an attempt to contain China to sort of exclude China from the region. How we were seen to bypass ASEAN because and here's the funny thing about Indo-Pacific. If you look at the map, ASEAN geographically is really at the centre of the Indo-Pacific, but sort so intellectually and conceptually. I don't think anyone was here. The UN is at the centre, right Indo-Pacific, so ASEAN. It triggered a fair bit of existential angst for ASEAN. So which explains why all the countries that have articulated that call it a view, call it the only position on the Indo-Pacific a formal have taken great pains to write ASEAN into that statement, as in Central Asia being important. You know, at the proverbial tip of the hat to ASEAN Central, to the knowing that it doesn't mean all that much. But it's important to put it in there. So they put it in there to allay the concerns of ASEAN.

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00:21:43

Duncan McCargo

Yeah, it is an extraordinary thing, isn't it? It's almost someone's drawing a big circle around Southeast Asia, but the emphasis is on the line of the circle itself.

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00:21:54

Joseph Liow

Exactly.

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00:21:55

Duncan McCargo

And it seems like a move very much calculated to marginalize China and to emphasize all kinds of players that sort of slightly and circle out Chinese influence.

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00:22:08

Joseph Liow

But interestingly, it's still pretty ambivalent. We're still pretty ambivalent to the Indo-Pacific, even though we have the ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific indeed. But interestingly, this is where sort of coming to the final topic for discussion really is where is the Biden administration on the US in all this? Because you might have thought that the Biden administration would distance itself a bit from this Indo-Pacific concept and here? Is there a sort of a parallelism with a topic that's been on a lot of people's minds lately, the debacle of Afghanistan? You know, are we seeing the end of the kind of directly engaged US influence in Asia that we've seen previously when moving to something different? And is is in fact the invocation of the Indo-Pacific in some way a stepping back from the Pax Americana that we'd imagined previously? Well, I think in relation to Afghanistan, my response is a yes and no. And I do have a little bit of a contrarian view on this because I agree that there was a recalibration on the part of the Biden administration. In fact, it's not even a recalibration. It was a it was continuity from the Trump administration and really harness the Indo-Pacific China being at the heart of at the center of everything that the US wanted to do in this region, sort of being the the environment arena in which they were going to do it. So withdrawal from Afghanistan facilitates this effort.

But so some people have been talking about how and the Chinese definitely have been talking about how the American withdrawal from Afghanistan is just yet another example plain as day for all to see how the Americans cannot commit and to the extent that it can you you want to be very careful because they can just pack up and ship right and leave you sort of carrying the can. I think that Afghanistan may not be as good and as accurate an analogy for even Southeast Asia, let alone larger, sort of. Asia, I think American interests in Afghanistan were I mean, apart from dealing with the terrorist threat which triggered all this right after 9-11, and even then, it was as much an emotive response on the part of the United States as it as it was a calculated move to to address this threat of terrorism. But in any case, apart from terrorism, there isn't any fundamental American interests tied to Afghanistan now. In the case of Southeast Asia, while I mentioned earlier, it's always very difficult to get Americans to sort of see the value and appreciate the value of Southeast Asia on its own merit. At the same time, I do think that compared to Afghanistan, the United States certainly has more interests, whether it's related to China or not. They certainly have more interests in our region. So I wouldn't go so far to say that it would therefore mean that the American commitment is ironclad. But I would say that Afghanistan is really a poor analogy for how the United States might act or position itself if there were other crises in the region. So that's my those are my thoughts on the Afghanistan people, right?

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00:25:41

Duncan McCargo

Do you see the Biden administration having a distinct policy towards Southeast Asia? Is it continuing with the Asia pivot of the Obama era or are we just in a kind of a post-Obama post-Trump kind of zone here?

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00:25:58

Joseph Liow

I don't think that there's a clear policy on Southeast Asia. I think that Southeast Asia features as a part of a larger region and a larger sort of rationale for which the United States is sort of recalibrating its presence in the region. So it's it's sort of a combination of the Obama pivot and Trump Indo-Pacific, right? Because in any case, you could even make the case that Trump was continuity from Obama. He was more amenable to a blunt instrument, and Obama and Biden is basically happy to carry on using that instrument. It's the same instrument Biden wants to be a bit more measured in how he uses it. But make no mistake, it's the same instrument. And so those are the fundamental sort of strategic objectives that United States has. And then from that vantage, they fit in Southeast Asia in just like they fit South Asia and Central Asia, et cetera. So I don't think that the United States will have a policy for Southeast Asia, nor they probably don't think that they even need one with we. Of course, in Southeast Asia, we would like for that to happen. And think about the region for the region, and they can come up with some point of reference for the region independent of the US and China. Like, we started this discussion. But yeah, we asked. I don't see that happening with this administration.

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00:27:30

Duncan McCargo

Absolutely, yes. Every country and every region in the world would like to have this special relationship, special recognition and special understanding from both the US and indeed these days with China. But it's very difficult to achieve this kind of special understanding because big countries have got too many people that they have to deal with. The smaller countries typically just have one or two. Yes, exactly. Well, this has been a fascinating conversation. Joseph, thanks so much for joining us on the Nordic Asia podcast.

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00:27:58

Joseph Liow

Thank you, Duncan - enjoyed it.

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00:28:02

Duncan McCargo

I'm Duncan McCargo, director of the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen. I've been talking to Joseph Lipw, a professor of politics and dean at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, about the politics of Southeast Asia, as framed - sometimes misleadingly - by great power rivalries between China and the United States. Thank you for joining the Nordic Asia podcast, showcasing Nordic collaboration in studying Asia. You have been listening to the Nordic Asia podcast