As tensions continue to grow between China and the United States, Southeast Asian nations remain locked in the epicenter of an emergent geopolitical competition. Many questions remain as to how these countries will respond to the external pressures generated by this rivalry.

To address these questions, Southeast Asia Program Director Donald K. Emmerson recently joined ONE News Philippines host Richard Heydarian for an interview in an episode of the series The View From Manila. The full interview is available below:

Heydarian opened the conversation by asking whether great power competition between China and the United States constituted a new Cold War. According to Emmerson, this was not the case, and another Cold War in the region is unlikely to happen due in part to the economic interconnectedness between China and the United States.

Over the course of the conversation, Emmerson discussed the various challenges ASEAN member nations face as they balance their own domestic needs and desire for autonomy with the increasingly tenuous international political scene in the South China Sea.

Emmerson emphasized the potential vulnerability of ASEAN member states amidst clashes between superpower countries. “It's natural that the diversity of Southeast Asia would be an opportunity for large, powerful outsiders to come in and try to establish support that would further divide Southeast Asia,” he said of the potential for great power rivalry to continue and perhaps worsen the multiple divisions and distinctions that already exist within Southeast Asia.

This profile of Norman Joshua originally appeared in The Stanford Report, part of a profile of three university postdoctoral scholars.

As an Indonesian and a historian, I have always been captivated by how Indonesia thrived under former President Suharto’s New Order regime for 32 years. Yet at the same time, society also buckled under the illiberal and authoritarian rule of the military.

After the fall of Suharto in 1998, the country began to open up. Many archives became much more accessible and writing about topics like the military and government were no longer taboo nor dangerous. That sparked my curiosity about how societies work, and I later earned my undergraduate degree in history from the University of Indonesia and a PhD in history from Northwestern University.

Today, I spend a lot of time working on my book proposal, which explores the origins of authoritarianism in Indonesia. It’s a story about how the Indonesian state and society – following a four-year revolution after World War II – gradually became preoccupied with order and security. I’m looking specifically at how and why the military became involved in non-military affairs, such as politics, culture, and the economy.

During the winter closure, I’ll be in Indonesia to do some work before the Christmas holiday, like visiting archives and libraries. I’ll also be attending a conference in London to present one of my book chapters.

I’m really enjoying the privilege of being at Stanford. Through the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, the Asia-Pacific Research Center, The Hoover Institution, and other centers, I’ve been able to talk with experts who have inspired my work. I’m really enjoying working with the faculty here – everyone’s been really welcoming and supportive.

Today’s geopolitical climate has created new and dangerous challenges for America’s defense and the support of democracy and freedom worldwide. These challenges demand a reexamination of the U.S. defense budget to ensure that America’s forces retain the capabilities to defend the nation and deter aggression abroad. The expert authors of the new volume Defense Budgeting for a Safer World (Hoover Institution Press) review the significant areas of debate in the U.S. defense budget and provide recommendations for aligning it with new global realities. Chief among these new realities are China’s modernized military and the nation’s objectives in the South China Sea and for reunification with Taiwan, testing U.S. dominance in the world order and raising questions about allies’ security and the U.S. ability to counter threats from the People’s Liberation Army.

In her contribution to the new volume, in a chapter titled “The Military Challenge of the People’s Republic of China,” Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro reviews the last quarter-century of developments in China’s strategy for reunification with Taiwan. Mastro explains that the original shape of that strategy, strengthening ties with Taiwan to persuade the population, “has failed” and now takes the form of belligerent air and sea incursions, increasingly sophisticated military exercises, and official Chinese rhetoric about the inevitability of reunification and the impossibility of Taiwan’s independence has intensified.

Mastro notes that “China’s military modernization has focused on the ability to prevent a decisive U.S. response, referred to as its anti-access/area denial (A2/AD) strategy." The United States, as a non-resident power in the Asia-Pacific, depends on its aircraft carriers to project power in the South China Sea, but these carriers are vulnerable to Chinese ballistic systems. Because it will likely have to operate outside the first island chain — that is, the “barrier” extending from Japan, past Taiwan and the Philippines, to maritime and peninsular Southeast Asia — the U.S. military depends on “enablers” to accomplish its missions, like aerial refueling and satellites for cyber capabilities. These assets are likewise vulnerable to Chinese disruption/attack, as are U.S. forward bases in Asia, such as Okinawa.

Mastro’s recommendations to mitigate current U.S. weaknesses to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan include "more access, basing, and overflight," "more mass on targets," and "leveraging partners." While Chinese military power has not surpassed that of the United States, Mastro warns that if U.S. deterrence is not maintained and improved, Chinese leadership may become confident enough to move against Taiwan, resulting in a war with the United States. On the other hand, she assesses that the needed deterrence is possible if the proper steps are taken now.