What’s Past Is Prologue: The Geopolitical Significance of COVID-19 for Southeast Asia

As countries begin to reopen during the COVID-19 pandemic, strategic analysts are debating its impact on the future of geopolitics. Some contend that the pandemic could reshape the global order, accelerating China’s rise to international leadership while hastening the decline of the United States. Others argue that predictions of China’s emergence as the world’s dominant power are overblown, with some even contending that the pandemic could trigger the downfall of the current leadership. Still others predict that the pandemic will accelerate history by reinforcing current trends. In Southeast Asia, Covid-19 is likely to accelerate existing trends such as China’s ascendency, the waning of U.S. leadership, and the intensification of Sino-U.S. rivalry that narrow the strategic options of regional states and could trigger strategic adjustments that favor China.

Southeast Asia has become a critical locus of competition as Sino-U.S. rivalry has escalated under Presidents Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. Abandoning Deng Xiaoping’s “hide your strength and bide your time” dictum, Xi has asserted Chinese interests more forcefully. China has claimed over 90% of the South China Sea and built and militarized artificial islands that enable it to project power deep into Southeast Asia. Xi’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aims to expand overland and maritime infrastructure, recreating “silk roads” that will orient international economic activity toward China. And Beijing is advocating a Chinese model of centralized authoritarian governance as superior to the American model for promoting economic and social development among developing countries.

Click here to read the full essay. NYSEAN co-founder Ann Marie Murphy writes for The New Normal in Asia, a National Bureau of Asian Research series exploring ways in which the COVID-19 pandemic might shape or reorder the world across multiple dimensions.