At the same time, the region’s leaders also don’t want the US’ strategic competition with China to get too hot—to the point of conflict or a hard decoupling. Needless to say, Southeast Asia being a vital node in maritime trade routes and also being enmeshed in global manufacturing supply chains would be profoundly impacted if that were to happen.

What are the key concerns that Southeast Asian leaders have expressed regarding this rivalry?

Today, we are closer to the “too hot” end of the spectrum. The concern is that the issues have become increasingly framed in irreconcilable ideological terms. Southeast Asian leaders accept that the U.S. and China would compete. But the concern is that the positions have hardened ideologically and the bilateral issues between the US and China have become conflated, over-securitised and difficult to untangle.

In the old days, it seemed easier to keep the issues separate. The Strategic and Economic Dialogue (S&ED), which was instituted in 2009 under the Obama administration, helped stabilise the bilateral relationship with a multitude of communication channels and meetings across various sectors, agencies and levels. These were halted during the Trump administration and it is only recently that there have been early signs of a thaw with the spate of bilateral visits by senior US officials to China. Let’s hope they keep these up and that productive outcomes will emerge from the talks.

You mention that it might be time for a shift in the strategic conversation between the United States and Southeast Asia. What are the main reasons for this need to shift gears, and what could a new conversation look like?

There is a need to shift gears because both sides are at risk of talking past each other, driven by their mutual inability or unwillingness to come to terms with the other party’s fundamental constraints and bottom lines. From the US perspective, it cannot fully accept the unwillingness of Southeast Asian countries to define the China threat in the same all-encompassing way the US currently seems to be defining the threat. For Southeast Asian countries, they cannot square the US’ fixation with democracy, human rights and values, and the perceived inconsistencies in the US’ actual policies and practices when realpolitik considerations kick in. Southeast Asians pointing out “whataboutisms” and hypocrisy in U.S. foreign policy behavior has been a constant feature of anti-US sentiment in the region.