Southeast Asia Doesn't Have to Choose Between Washington and Beijing
The framing is lazy and the region knows it. What ASEAN is actually doing is more interesting than "hedging."
A False Binary
Every foreign-policy essay published in the last five years has warned that Southeast Asia will "have to choose" between the US and China. Southeast Asia has, with quiet consistency, declined.
What's actually happening
Vietnam signed a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with the US and one with China in the same 12 months. Indonesia is buying Rafales, F-15s, and Chinese high-speed rail. The Philippines rebuilt its US base access while its top trading partner remains China.
This is not confusion. This is doctrine.
The doctrine
Call it strategic non-exclusivity: engage everyone, foreclose no one, keep optionality. The region has done this since Bandung. It is doing it better now because it can.
Why the framing persists
Because it flatters Western commentators. It centers Washington. It ignores that Jakarta, Hanoi, and Manila have their own theories of the case — theories that have kept the region richer and more peaceful than most of the analysts predicting its capitulation.
Stop asking who ASEAN will side with. Start asking what ASEAN wants.
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