On September 19, 2018, posters with the U.S. flag and the Chinese flag are seen outside a store selling foreign goods in Qingdao, Shandong Province, eastern China.
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SINGAPORE – Southeast Asian support for the United States appears to be rising after Joe Biden won the presidential election, according to an annual poll by Singapore think tank ISEAS Yusof-Ishak Institute.
The Southeast Asian state poll released last week found that 61.5% of respondents favor aligning with the U.S. over China if the region was forced to choose sides. This is an increase of 53.6% that the United States chose over China in the same survey a year ago.
“Support for the region in Washington may have increased as a result of the prospects of the new Biden administration,” the report of the survey results read.
Responses to the latest poll were collected from November 18 last year to January 10 this year, after Biden was projected to defeat Donald Trump in the election, but before he was sworn in as president.
The survey involved more than 1,000 respondents from the 10 member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations or ASEAN. Respondents include government officials, business people, as well as academic analysts, think tanks, and research institutions.
When comparing data at the country level, most respondents from seven Southeast Asian countries chose the United States over China in the latest survey. This is an increase over three of the previous edition, with Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
Despite this, the largest proportion of respondents chose China – above the US, ASEAN and others – as the most influential power in Southeast Asia.
About 76.3% of respondents chose China as the most influential economic power, while 49.1% chose China as the most influential political and strategic power.
Importance of Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia has been caught in the midst of competition between the United States and China in recent years.
The region is home to more than 650 million people and some of the fastest growing economies in the world. Its proximity to the South China Sea, a vital trade route through which billions of dollars of world trade pass, adds to its strategic importance.
The United States has for many years been a major presence in the region through both security and economic commitments. But during Trump’s tenure, the U.S. withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (a mega-trade pact that included several Southeast Asian countries) and top U.S. government officials were absent at some major regional summits.
This apparent lack of US interest in recent years coincided with China’s more aggressive push into the region through programs that included infrastructure investments under the Belt and Road Initiative.
But the latest ISEAS survey found that the majority of respondents (about 68.6%) were optimistic that the U.S. under Biden would increase its stake in Southeast Asia. This was compared to a year ago, when 77% thought it would decrease U.S. engagement, according to the survey.
Confidence in the region in the US also rose from 30.3% a year ago to 48.3% in the last survey.
“Only time will tell whether the region’s renewed confidence in the United States is out of place or not,” the report reads.
Early signs have shown that the Biden administration will focus more on the region in the coming years.
The president has bolstered his foreign policy team with experts in Asia, while U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a call with his Philippine counterpart, pledged to “defend” the countries of the South. East Asia against Chinese pressure in the South China Sea.