Southeast Asia served as a global center stage in recent days amid back-to-back-to-back summits, which corralled world leaders from across the Indo-Pacific and beyond.
And instead of a head-to-head showdown between the US and China, an uneasy détente between the two superpowers underscored shared concerns over deteriorating geopolitical and economic prospects in the near future.
Throughout the marathon summits, both China and the US displayed strategic maturity, with Chinese President Xi Jinping aptly noting “[that’s] what the international community expects.”
During his speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders’ summit in Bangkok, Thailand, the Chinese leader struck a more pragmatic and conciliatory note.
He emphasized that the region should not become “an arena for big power contest,” which would “disrupt” economic recovery and geopolitical stability in the world’s most dynamic corner.
Just days earlier, Xi held a widely-anticipated summit with US President Joe Biden on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in neighboring Indonesia.
In what seemed like a sincerely cordial meeting, the two world leaders agreed to manage their inevitable competition “responsibly” and, accordingly, “maintain open lines of communication” to avoid unnecessary escalation and accidental conflict.
Both superpowers also underscored the need for a peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian conflict, warning Russia against further escalation through potential usage of nuclear weapons.
Throughout the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), G20, and APEC summits, both sides also pressed for, either in competition or in tandem, various initiatives to deepen intra-regional trade as well as enhance infrastructure connectivity, climate change resilience and post-pandemic economic recovery in the Indo-Pacific.
By all indications, the mega-summits over the past week were a win-win for both superpowers, which managed to both reinforce their regional primacy as well as project responsible leadership.
While welcoming the “cold peace” between the two superpowers, which appears to have reduced the near-term prospect of a US-China armed conflict, regional states remain deeply worried about growing fragmentation of supply chains amid Western sanctions against China’s key industries.
The Southeast Asia summits, which kicked off in Cambodia last weekend, ended on a relatively dramatic note. Just ahead of the opening of the APEC summit, North Korea tested a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile, which was met with strong condemnation from the US and its key allies.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who represented the US on behalf of Biden, who skipped the event to the chagrin of its Thai hosts in order to attend a family engagement, quickly corralled regional allies, namely Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, for an emergency meeting on Pyongyang’s latest provocation.
But it was the ongoing conflict in Ukraine that consistently dominated this week’s summitry. During the G20 summit, where Russia was represented by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, “[m]ost members strongly condemned the war in Ukraine.”
In their joint declaration, G20 members acknowledged that “there were other views and different assessments of the situation and sanctions”, referring to Moscow’s opposing views, but all major powers were unanimous in their rejection of the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons as “inadmissible.”
“It is essential to uphold international law and the multilateral system that safeguards peace and stability,” the G20 joint declaration added, underscoring Russia’s relative isolation at the summit.
Indonesian President Joko Widodo, who presided over the event, maintained that the Ukraine crisis, which has sent shockwaves across global commodity markets, was the most contentious geopolitical issue.
“The discussion on this was very, very tough and by the end the G20 leaders agreed on the content of the declaration, which was the condemnation of the war in Ukraine because it has violated country borders and integrity,” Widodo argued.
Instead of locking horns, however, the US and China largely agreed on the need for maintaining stable bilateral relations in the interest of the wider region.
For its part, Beijing recognized how “the current state of China-US relations is not in the fundamental interests of the two countries and peoples” while Washington underscored its commitment to ensuring its strategic competition with Beijing “should not veer into conflict”
The apparent US-China détente was welcomed across the region, allowing the regional summits to end on relatively positive, collaborative notes.
“Far from splitting along one line or another, I think we see increasing convergence among all of the countries on the critical issues that actually matter in the lives of our citizens,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on the sidelines of the APEC summit.
“I think you’ll see coming out of Bangkok in the next 24 hours or so, important steps forward that we’re taking together,” he added.
The APEC nations, namely Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam, compromise as much as 60% of the world economy and more than half global trade.
France and Saudi Arabia also attended the event this year in hopes of deepening strategic relations with the world’s most dynamic region. During the Bangkok summit, participants primarily focused on economic issues, including the need to revive regional trade against a rising global tide of populist protectionism as well as boost economic sustainability among regional economies.
To this end, the APEC leaders adopted the so-called “Bangkok Goals for a Bio-Circular-Green Economy” concept, which aims to coordinate and deepen intra-regional collaboration to boost post-pandemic recovery and enhance climate change resilience among member states.
The US-China détente in Bali eased growing anxieties over the prospect of armed conflict between the two superpowers, especially following former US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan earlier this year.
Nevertheless, regional states are still deeply worried about their long-term economic prospects. In particular, there are still no indications that Washington will roll back its punitive economic measures against China’s key economic sectors anytime soon.
Since most regional economies count China as a primary trading and investment partner, Western sanctions will have ripple effects across the Asia-Pacific region. In fact, deepening anxieties over the decoupling and fragmentation of global supply chains was the central focus of Singaporean Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan.
“There has to be a commitment to open science, the fair sharing and harvesting of intellectual property, and a system in which we will compete to be most innovative, reliable and trustworthy, rather than be judged simply by which side we have taken,” declared the Southeast Asian diplomat during the Next Step Global Conference organized by the US-based Peterson Institute for International Economics think tank and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore this week.
“I do not believe any self-respecting Asian country wants to be trapped, or to be a vassal or, worse, to be a theater for proxy battles. So, I am trying to make the argument for what the rest of the world wants,” Balakrishnan added, calling on smaller regional nations to forge a common front amid the US-China economic showdown.
Follow Richard Javad Heydarian on Twitter at @Richeydarian