In Brief: Hunter Marston on democracy and hedging strategies in the Indo-Pacific

HM 6 .jpg — *In Brief: Hunter Marston on democracy and hedging strategies in the Indo-Pacific*

12 March 2021

Firstly, as the newest member of the 9DL team a very warm welcome to the role of Australia Associate which is of course something we have been keen to share for quite some time.

Given your research and expertise, it is no surprise that recent events in Myanmar have seen you particularly busy providing commentary both in print and on television — can we start by exploring your background.

9DL: For many people, you have become something of a key ‘go-to’ voice on Southeast Asia, I wonder if you could tell us a little about how your interest in the region developed over the last number of years, and also, why this part of the world seems to matter now more than ever.

HM: I first became interested in the politics, history, and cultures of Southeast Asia while teaching English in Vietnam after my undergraduate studies. While in Vietnam I travelled around the region and learned more about Southeast Asia’s complex and richly interconnected histories. Seeing Buddhist monks protesting against the military regime in Myanmar back in 2007 sparked my interest in civil society and democratisation. I began reading all I could on Myanmar, but at the time I was living in Vietnam and studying Vietnamese. I then move to Thailand, where I spent four months working and travelling to Myanmar observing civil society groups and their strategies. I applied to several Masters programs before settling in Seattle to do my Masters in Southeast Asian Studies at the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies. There I learned a great deal about the Vietnam War and Vietnamese history. I also had the opportunity to study Burmese politics with renowned Myanmar expert Mary Callahan. While at UW, I continued to study both Vietnamese and Burmese. During my MA at UW, I had the opportunity to intern in the US Embassy in Myanmar for a summer, which gave me a phenomenal perspective on the country and an inside look at the US foreign policy machinery.

Southeast Asia is an incredibly diverse and populous region that is developing rapidly as well as growing in economic power. It also rings China’s southern periphery and represents the frontline in Beijing’s attempts to carve out a sphere of influence in the Indo-Pacific region. Some of those states have particularly tense relations due to maritime territorial disputes with China, namely Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, and even Brunei. While the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has demonstrated the important capacity of institutions to prevent interstate conflict and deepen regional trade and connectivity, we are also seeing how increasing geopolitical competition is shaping the choices of smaller states in Southeast Asia. What happens in Southeast Asia matters for the world, as it will in many ways determine how other countries in the broader Pacific, Central Asia, and even Europe, work with or resist China’s growing heft.

9DL: While you seem very much at home in Canberra there are no doubt times where it is hard not to view events through your native (US) lens, therefore, in terms of challenges, opportunities or even missteps, how do you see Australia's approach toward the region?

HM: As an American in Australia, I am fascinated to observe the debate unfolding in Canberra regarding the country’s relations with China and the United States as well as its regional engagement of Southeast Asian countries. Canberra’s dilemma reflects that of smaller Indo-Pacific nations dependent on China for trade and investment. At the same time, Australia has a long-held alliance with the United States that undergirds its security and informs its foreign policy and strategic culture as an Anglophone nation. While an enormous and highly developed country with world-class education institutions (such as Australian National University), one thing that has intrigued me since arriving in the country nearly two years ago is the profound anxiety associated with Australia’s middle power status. The divisiveness surrounding the policy debate on China is particularly acute. At the same time, while Australians recognise the strategic importance of Southeast Asia as their literal gateway to the Pacific, many acknowledge that Canberra has misunderstood or overlooked its regional counterparts for decades. It seems that this debate has advanced somewhat in the past year, and Australians are now more alert to the challenges China poses for their country as well as Southeast Asia’s significance for Australia’s security and prosperity.

9DL: You write extensively on Southeast Asia and have become heavily involved in researching small states and hedging strategies vis-à-vis the United States and China. I wonder if you could speak to what sparked this area of interest and perhaps how you see China’s influence playing out in the region.

HM: Before moving to Canberra to start my PhD in International Relations, I became very interested in the topic of hedging— specifically, how small states in Southeast Asia manage superpower competition between the United States and China with an eye to preserving their relationships with both countries. While I was at the Brookings Institution before the ANU, I had the opportunity to learn from two extraordinary scholars and co-author a book chapter and a paper that shaped my thinking on hedging. First, I wrote a chapter with Joseph Liow on Singapore’s foreign policy, in which we argued that Singapore is unlikely to balance against China in the foreseeable future. Rather, it will remain a pragmatic ‘small-b’ balancer aiming to strike an equilibrium in its relations with both great powers. Then I wrote a report with Jonathan Stromseth, Senior Fellow for Southeast Asia in Brookings’ Foreign Policy program, in which we examined the effect great power competition was having on democracy and governance in Southeast Asia. Based on our review of three countries (Cambodia, Myanmar, and Indonesia), we argued that Beijing was not actively promoting its authoritarian model in the region. However, through its enormous investments, which often facilitate corruption and have willingly enabled the rise of strongmen like Hun Sen in Cambodia, China has facilitated the current democratic decline discernible across Southeast Asia.

9DL: From trade war to nuclear brinkmanship; it is perhaps fair to say that few regions have been subject to the type of turbulence Asia has seen in recent years, how do you assess former President Trump's legacy in this part of the world?

HM: President Trump’s legacy in Southeast Asia is an interesting one. On the one hand, he largely disengaged the United States from the region, only attending one ASEAN Summit in his first year in office and skipping two East Asia Summits while sending lower-level representation to both meetings in 2018 and 2019. Trump also failed to appoint an ambassador to ASEAN, Singapore, and the Philippines, while only appointing an ambassador to Indonesia in 2019. These moves were largely viewed as a snub, and most ASEAN states felt that Washington was less engaged with their region compared to the Obama administration. At the same time, Southeast Asian countries were deeply disappointed that Trump withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal which the Obama administration negotiated and which would have opened up market access to the United States and for the United States in Southeast Asia. Trump’s escalation of tensions with North Korea and China provoked mixed reactions in the region. Some states like Vietnam were quite supportive of Trump’s tough talk on China, while others like Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore were very anxious about the increasing pressure on them to support the US Free and Open Indo-Pacific vision, which many felt was a thinly veiled containment strategy aimed at China. Many also bristled at the Trump administration’s preoccupation with bilateral trade deficits and rhetorical abuse of countries like Vietnam for their perceived unfair trade practices, which were not conducive to US efforts to elicit support for its Indo-Pacific policy.

On the other hand, the Trump administration made efforts to repair Washington’s fraying alliances with Thailand and the Philippines, which had encountered setbacks due to the authoritarian turn in both countries. The Trump administration also made important inroads in rebuilding ties with Cambodia through veteran Southeast Asia hand Ambassador Patrick Murphy. However, on the whole, the Trump years badly undermined American credibility in Asia, an argument I made with Van Jackson in Foreign Policy shortly before Biden’s election.

9DL: Can you speak to China’s impact on domestic governance and democratic trends in Southeast Asia.

HM: Beijing is not actively exporting its governance model to Southeast Asian countries. However, the lack of transparency in its investment flows and Belt and Road projects throughout the region have fostered greater corruption rather than incentivised a more open, equitable, and rules-based order. Beijing’s willingness to work with authoritarian partners and overlook human rights abuses and the erosion of democracy has encouraged regional strongmen like Hun Sen and Duterte to take their countries in a more illiberal direction. Both Cambodia and the Philippines, for example, have solicited enormous pledges from China through its Belt and Road Initiative (even if they have not panned out as planned in the latter) and used their power to muzzle dissidents and suppress opposition to their continued rule. Rather than encourage political reforms one way or the other, Beijing’s insistence on a non-interference and ‘it’s-just-business’ type approach has facilitated the region’s illiberal trajectory.

9DL: Much has been made of how US-China competition is constraining the ability of regional states to maintain independent foreign policies — as someone actively involved in research (and given the region's history) how do you see the future?

HM: Southeast Asia’s repeated claim that it will not take sides between the United States and China has become something of a platitude, but it reflects a hard-wired instinct for autonomy that many states share. Southeast Asia had barely emerged from centuries of colonialism — from the Dutch in Indonesia to the British in Singapore and Burma and the French in Vietnam — in the wake of World War II when the Cold War forced new geopolitical pressures on the region. Many states like Laos and Cambodia struggled to pursue paths of nonalignment, but the Cold War wreaked havoc on the region with devastating civil wars in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and communist insurgencies in Burma, Malaya, and the Philippines. The United States partnered with anti-communist strongmen like Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore, General Sarit in Thailand, and Suharto in Indonesia in an effort to contain the spread of communism from China and the Soviet Union. Following détente with the Soviet Union and US diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China in 1979, Southeast Asia experienced decades of extraordinary economic growth.

With the return of great power competition, ASEAN states are once again anxious that US-China tensions will hurt economic prosperity and threaten their autonomy. We have seen a clear preference for hedging from the likes of Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia, as well as Vietnam. Other states such as Cambodia, Thailand, and the Philippines have drawn closer to Beijing, though the latter two maintain security alliances with the United States. China’s economic dominance of the region as the largest trading partner and major investor has caused concerns in regional capitals about the risks of overdependence on Beijing and exposure to unwanted influence. At the same time, maritime states with territorial disputes with China, including Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines, are anxious about potential threats to their sovereignty but are unsure they can rely on a distant United States for their defence. Some such as Singapore are vocal proponents of a sustained US security presence to balance China’s expanding influence, but it remains a fine line to walk. For the foreseeable future, small powers in Southeast Asia will cling to their independent foreign policies and seek to diversify their foreign relations in an attempt to find a balance that allows them more options and to avoid choosing sides in the brewing superpower rivalry.

9DL: And finally, April marks our first year in operation and you therefore join 9DL at a very exciting time, as the latest member of the team I wonder if there is anything in particular you are looking forward to?

HM: I am very excited to join 9DL at this time given the growing interest in Australia's role in the Indo-Pacific and Canberra's recognition that its partnerships in the region are critical to national security in the 21st century. I am keen to work with the next generation of strategic thinkers in Australia and New Zealand via the editorial team and the growing 9DL associate network down under. I am particularly looking forward to leveraging the great relationships I have built with some of the world's leading think tanks, university centres and other institutions in this part of the world.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of Hunter Marston and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Biography

Hunter Marston is a PhD candidate in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs Department of International Relations at the Australian National University and has written about Southeast Asia in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Washington Post, and The New York Times.