New York, Wednesday April 24 — “When you look at what will matter to the United States in the next 30 years in foreign policy, I think it’s very clear that Asia and the Indo-Pacific are going to be critical for economic reasons, for political reasons, and for strategic reasons,” said U.S. Ambassador to Malaysia Edgard D. Kagan in a recent conversation with Asia Society Policy Institute’s Daniel Russel. Joining them to discuss U.S. engagement in Southeast Asia were U.S. Ambassador to Laos Heather Variava and U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Marc E. Knapper. Ted Osius, President and CEO of the US-ASEAN Business Council, provided opening remarks.

According to the three ambassadors, of all the regions in the world, competition between the U.S. and China is most contested in Southeast Asia. The 2024 ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute of Singapore’s assessment of Southeast Asian attitudes — one mechanism for measuring American and Chinese influence in the region – indicated that ASEAN states would prefer China over the U.S., if forced to align with either rival, by a margin of 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent.

Countries throughout the region are experienced in the practice of hedging between the U.S. and China. “Vietnam engages in what is known as 'bamboo diplomacy’ — you can imagine a bamboo tree swaying back and forth in the wind, flexible and never breaking. This is how they’ve engaged over the years with the great powers: friends with everyone, enemies with none. And this is why, last year, Vietnam was the only country in the world to host both President Xi and President Biden,” said Marc Knapper.

Positioned under China with competing interests in the South China Sea, Vietnam has had to balance its relationships carefully. However, in Malaysia “there is less of a sense of threat” and more of a “sense of opportunity” to leverage geopolitical competition between the U.S. and China. According to Edgard D. Kagan, “On one level there is concern surrounding the potential outbreak of conflict — no country wants to have to choose or be caught in the middle — but on the other hand I think that there is a growing appreciation in Malaysia for the fact that competition between the U.S. and China is leading to a great deal of additional investment in Malaysia, and that is something that is a real opportunity for them.”

Landlocked Laos, which is one of the least developed ASEAN members, has looked to both the U.S. and China for foreign direct investment. China has poured money into the country, investing in a high-speed railroad connecting Vientiane and the provincial town of Boten on the Chinese border, which is now filled with high-rises, highways, and casinos. In addition to assisting with the development of healthcare and education infrastructure, the U.S. is focusing its efforts on helping Laos become a better magnet for investment, says Heather Variava.

“Throughout Southeast Asia there are very forward-looking governments that have long histories with their neighbors and other Asian states. We’ve built confidence through the programs we’ve led, especially with Vietnam and Laos, when it comes to war legacy issues,” said Variava. This focus on reconciliation has played a large role in rehabilitating complex memories of American involvement in the region during the Vietnam War, enhancing perceptions of the U.S. among ASEAN states.

According to Knapper, in Vietnam the American government has helped clean up unexploded ordnance from the war, search for missing Vietnamese service members, and assist people with disabilities from exposure to dioxin (Agent Orange). “All these efforts have helped build trust, confidence, and reconciliation with each other. This is what Vietnam has asked us to do, to continue supporting these efforts. It is important to focus on the past, which has built the path to a future of shared prosperity and friendship,” said Knapper.

The ambassadors agreed that, across ASEAN, there is a desire for the U.S. to help create the structures needed to address challenges like resource management along the Mekong River and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea. But, according to Russel, this partnership is reciprocal: ASEAN can help the U.S. as much as it can help them. “Not only do Southeast Asian nations themselves put pressure on Washington and Beijing to cool it and manage their relationship, but they also offer an interesting platform for both the U.S. and China to engage with each other as diplomats at events like the ASEAN Regional Forum and the East Asia Forum,” he shared.

Watch the full conversation here.