Southeast Asia’s security partnerships stronger and more diverse at the end of 2023

5 December 2023

Concerns about intensifying Sino-US tensions and a recent meeting between US President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of APEC in San Francisco have dominated international media coverage in recent weeks. Beneath the superficial focus on great power rivalry, however, two trends will shape regional security beyond 2023.

First, Southeast Asian states have more options than commonly understood when it comes to regional security partners, as exemplified by Japan’s new Official Security Assistance (OSA) framework. Second, intra-regional security links have proliferated as regional states have deepened strategic trust with each other to avoid taking sides in US-China competition.

Both trends reflect the broader preference for hedging, which will persist for the foreseeable future despite growing concerns about the security threat from China as well as uncertainty regarding the United States’ long-term commitment to the region, fuelled by populist politics in the run-up to the 2024 election.

Japan’s expanding security role in Southeast Asia

In August, the Philippines began discussing a reciprocal access agreement with Japan’s Self-Defence Forces during a visit by Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to Manila. During Kishida’s visit, the two sides agreed to the first-ever transfer of defence technology, including coastal radar equipment worth USD 4 million, under Tokyo’s recently launched OSA framework. The two leaders also called for increased trilateral cooperation with the United States and rejected “unilateral attempts to change the status quo by force”, in a not-so-thinly veiled jab at China’s actions within Philippine territorial waters.

Though divided by competing interests and entrenched divisions over how to respond to internal crises like the ongoing conflict in Myanmar, Southeast Asia has more options today and as a result greater confidence to set the regional agenda and dictate terms to the great powers.

In recent months, Chinese maritime militia and coast guard vessels have harassed Manila’s efforts to resupply a deteriorating naval ship, the BRP Sierra Madre, which the Philippines deliberately ran aground to assert its sovereignty claims against China in 1999. The new Japanese technology will boost the Philippines’ ability to monitor activities within its vast archipelagic waters, which has challenged Manila’s defence capabilities for decades, especially in light of long-running separatist movements in the country’s south.

Japan has emerged as a critical partner of choice for Southeast Asian countries, particularly in its efforts to build maritime and coast guard capacity for frontline states in the South China Sea, including the Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

Like the Philippines, Vietnam is also a major recipient of Japanese maritime capacity-building assistance, agreeing to a USD 348.2 million loan from Japan’s International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to deliver six patrol vessels by 2025.

Strengthening strategic diversification

Vietnam and the Philippines’ active defence diplomacy are part of a wider trend of strategic diversification taking shape across Southeast Asia. Japan’s enhanced security role as well as the Biden administration’s efforts to shore up shaky alliances and defence commitments to allies like the Philippines have bolstered regional confidence in light of China’s provocative behaviour in the South China Sea.

Frustrated by the glacial pace of negotiations between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to conclude a code of conduct (COC) in the South China Sea, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Vietnam have recently begun talks of their own to settle overlapping maritime disputes. A COC would significantly enhance the three claimants’ bargaining position vis-à-vis China.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has also signalled his willingness to work with extra-regional partners including members of the Quad. In August, the Philippines Navy held quadrilateral exercises with counterparts from the United States, Australia, and Japan.

The Philippines is not the only one expanding its network of defence partners in response to China’s increasing use of coercion to assert its maritime claims against smaller states. Last month Indonesia elevated its relationship with the United States to a comprehensive strategic partnership. Vietnam also upgraded its partnership with the United States to the comprehensive strategic level in September during a visit by President Biden to Hanoi.

The move followed an announcement the previous month that Vietnam would upgrade its partnership with Singapore to the same level, while Hanoi has also signalled its intention to do the same with Australia and Indonesia in recent months. The rapid expansion of Hanoi’s list of security partners showcases its foreign policy doctrine of “multilateralisation and diversification”.

More options in an uncertain future

Partnering with Japan and expanding security cooperation amongst other regional countries helps Southeast Asian states avoid the perception that they are siding with either the United States or China in escalating great power competition. Such diversification has given ASEAN states the wherewithal to conduct joint military exercises with China near disputed waters in the South China Sea, previously a thorny proposition.

For the last three decades since the end of the Cold War, Southeast Asian countries have been relatively comfortable operating on two separate planes: they looked to the United States to uphold regional security, essential to the free flow of commerce and ideas, even as they benefited from the economic opportunities afforded by hitching their wagons to China’s rise. However, given Beijing’s increasing willingness to use military heft and economic coercion to achieve its strategic goals, and in light of growing doubts about Washington’s long-term commitment to the region — in large part fuelled by concerns of a second Trump presidency — that simple division between security and economics has broken down. Washington’s current aversion to economic statecraft and Southeast Asia’s eagerness for trade deals as well as infrastructure investment needs further complicate the breakdown between the two planes.

This muddled picture also makes traditional hedging between the United States and China more difficult, as Southeast Asian countries find they have to make uncomfortable choices on issues ranging from supply chain security to 5G technology and reciprocal access agreements. Fortunately, the current multipolar order which prevails in Asia provides regional states with more options than narrow takes on US-China rivalry commonly suggest.

As a result, Southeast Asia’s future is unlikely to resemble its past or reflect the dilemmas that confronted the region throughout the unipolar era of the 1990s and 2000s at the height of US power. Rather, Southeast Asian states will continue to avoid difficult binary choices by hedging with a range of strategic partners, including Japan, and Australia, as well as one another. The latter may be the most consequential addition to the regional order. Though divided by competing interests and entrenched divisions over how to respond to internal crises like the ongoing conflict in Myanmar, Southeast Asia has more options today and as a result greater confidence to set the regional agenda and dictate terms to the great powers.

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

Author biography

Hunter Marston is an Associate with 9DASHLINE, a PhD candidate at the Australian National University, and an Adjunct Research Fellow at La Trobe Asia. Image credit: Flickr/US Indo-Pacific Command.