ASEAN, Not Africa is Becoming The Primary Venue for the U.S.-China Great Power Struggle

February 18, 2021

Three decades after the last Cold War ended, African leaders are understandably concerned they’ll once again get swept up in great power rivalry, this time between the United States and China. But there’s little indication that either Washington or Beijing has any plans to make Africa a primary battleground in their increasingly acrimonious feud.

Instead, Southeast Asia is now emerging as the primary front in this burgeoning great power rivalry. And as the new Biden administration recalibrates U.S. foreign policy to dedicate less attention to China in places like Africa, there’s growing pressure on the White House and Secretary of State Antony Blinken to focus more of its resources on confronting China in the ASEAN region.

Beyond the obvious good luck for African stakeholders that their countries may avoid becoming ensnared in this fight, they also have the opportunity to closely observe how the U.S, China and the ten ASEAN countries position themselves and then apply those lessons to their own dealings with Washington and Beijing.

Policy Analysis on U.S.-China Tensions in ASEAN That Have Direct Applications For African Governments

U.S. SHOULD STOP “DEBT TRAP” RHETORIC: “With China actively pushing infrastructure development under the BRI umbrella — projects include hydropower dams, oil and gas pipelines, and eventually extensive railway networks — U.S. efforts to brand the initiative as debt-trap diplomacy do not resonate with Southeast Asian countries” — David Dollar & Jonathan Stromseth from the John L. Thornton China Center (BROOKINGS INSTITUTION)

U.S. BUSINESS HAS TO GET IN THE GAME: “To compete, Washington needs to play to its own competitive strengths: access to capital; best-in-class companies; world-beating technology; and connections to global supply chains. But the fact is, the United States has largely faded, or else opted out commercially, from about two-thirds of the Eurasian landmass” — Evan A. Feigenbaum of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (NATIONAL INTEREST)

SUGGESTED READING:

South China Morning Post: US ‘neglect’ drives Asean towards China in superpower economic rivalry, analysts say by Karen Yeung
The Diplomat: Report Shows Rising Southeast Asian Trust in US, Falling Trust in China by Sebastian Strangio

The post ASEAN, Not Africa is Becoming The Primary Venue for the U.S.-China Great Power Struggle appeared first on The China Africa Project.

source https://chinaafricaproject.com/2021/02/18/asean-not-africa-is-becoming-the-primary-venue-for-the-u-s-china-great-power-struggle/

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Rajpriya Gautam