Figure 0.1 USS Carl Vinson
Source: US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Eric Coffer
Being on the deck of an American aircraft carrier is an awe-inspiring experience. In a different way, so too is witnessing a land reclamation construction project as far as the eye can see. These two experiences that I had within a month during 2017 encapsulated and brought home to me the respective differences between the United States and China in Southeast Asia.
I first visited the Changi Naval Base in Singapore and went aboard the massive aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson (Fig. 0.1)—the 101,300-ton Nimitz-class flagship of Carrier Strike Group 1 of the US Third Fleet (home-ported in San Diego but part of the Pacific Fleet).
Figure 0.1 USS Carl Vinson
Source: US Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Eric Coffer
With its accompanying carrier battle group of guided missile destroyers, cruisers, submarines, and supply ships, the Carl Vinson had docked at Changi following back-to-back exercises near North Korea in the Sea of Japan and Chinese-occupied islands in the South China Sea—sending powerful deterrent signals in each case. Walking the massive deck of the supercarrier past an array of F-18 Super Hornet fighters, anti-submarine warfare planes, electronic attack and early warning aircraft, and helicopters, with more planes and lethal munitions below deck (Fig. 0.2), and speaking with the dedicated sea and air men and women onboard was a moving and memorable experience.
Figure 0.2 The author aboard USS Carl Vinson
Source: Author’s photo
The carrier visit was a potent reminder of America’s unrivaled military power—which has been projected throughout East Asia and the western Pacific for more than seven decades. Quietly but firmly, every day of the year, the US Navy and other military forces contribute to securing and stabilizing this dynamic and strategically important region of the world, supporting America’s five allies and many partners in the region, and giving daily credence to the century-long presence of the United States as an Asian and Pacific power.
Subsequently, two weeks later, I crossed the causeway that connects Singapore to Malaysia and traveled up to the scenic port city of Malacca (Melaka in Malay). First, 20 miles or so into the southern Malaysian state of Johor, one encounters the massive Chinese residential development of Forest City—a joint project between Johor and a Chinese company. A sprawling multipurpose complex encompassing 20 square kilometers and four separate islands, Forest City bills itself as the “largest residential complex in the world” and as an “Exclusive Island Living Paradise.”1 It is still in the early stages of construction (Figure 0.3), while Figure 0.4 is a scale model of what the whole project will look like upon completion by 2025.
Figure 0.3 Forest City development
Source: Author’s photo
Figure 0.4 Scale model of Forest City
Source: Author’s photo
Forest City’s developer, the Guangzhou-based developer Country Garden Group, is building enough residential housing for as many as 700,000 people. It will be a complete self-contained “eco city”—with schools, hospitals, entertainment, three 18-hole golf courses, and other amenities. Although within commuting distance of Singapore, most of the residents are intended to live there or use it as weekend getaways from China. The apartments were selling quickly to mainland Chinese citizens prior to 2018, when the Chinese government slapped stricter controls on the movement of private capital out of the country. For a while, the developer was offering Shanghai residents a “two for one” opportunity—buy a flat in Shanghai and get one free in Forest City. While PRC capital controls slowed sales somewhat, the young saleswoman I met (“Charlotte,” an information technology graduate from Beijing Normal University) maintained that 40 percent of all planned units had been bought.
As one walks into the sales gallery you are greeted with the soothing background music of John Denver’s “Country Roads,” and the sprawling gallery opens out on to idyllic pools and a beach with Bali-style umbrellas (although no swimming is permitted). I toured several model apartments, pretending to be a potential buyer (speaking Chinese with her may have helped my credibility). A three-bedroom, 635-square-foot flat was going for $198,200, while a 1,141-square-foot three-bedroom with small yard was going for $450,000. I thanked Charlotte and told her I would get back to her. While an ambitious development, Forest City has also encountered scathing criticism for the size of the footprint of the project, the environmental damage that it has caused, lack of consultation with the local community, around-the-clock construction, and the imported labor from China.2
Several hours beyond Forest City one reaches the ancient seaside city of Malacca. The somewhat sleepy fifteenth-century enclave occupies an incredibly important strategic location astride the Malacca Strait (see Fig. 0.5).3 The strait—which runs between Malaysia, Indonesia, and Singapore—is one of the busiest shipping lanes and trade routes in the world, with approximately 50,000 vessels ferrying 40 percent of the world’s merchandise trade and 25 percent of all oil shipments carried by sea annually.4 At its narrowest point near Singapore, the strait is only 1.5 miles wide, making it a strategic chokepoint in times of conflict. The Chinese refer to their “Malacca dilemma”—a reference to the potential that, in wartime, the US Navy could close the strait and thus inhibit China’s energy imports and merchandise exports. Dozens of massive ships—oil supertankers, vehicle carriers, container ships, naval vessels—all ply this narrow isthmus at close proximity with each other daily.
Figure 0.5 The Malacca Straits near Singapore
Source: Author’s photo
Given their dependence on imported energy supplies, all Asian states—particularly those in Northeast Asia—would be profoundly affected if a blockade or naval conflict shut down this strategic passageway.
As one leaves the charming central quarter of Malacca City—which is filled with quaint “shop houses,” open-air food stalls, vibrant markets, and old-world architecture—one drives across a causeway to a connecting islet where one is greeted with a massive billboard announcing the entrance to the multipurpose “Melaka Gateway” project being built by the Chinese in cooperation with Malaysian partners.5 It is a somewhat typical example of China’s vaunted “Belt and Road” Initiative. When I visited the Melaka Gateway project in 2017, I was stunned by its potential scale. Sitting directly adjacent to the strategically sensitive Malacca Strait, Malacca Gateway spans 750 acres and will encompass four distinct islands (mainly reclaimed land).
Figure 0.6 Melaka Gateway
Source: Author’s photo
The project includes a large residential district with hotels and condominiums, hospitals and schools, a Ferris wheel, a marina for 600 private yachts, and a major terminal that can berth up to four Royal Caribbean cruise ships at once. Next door will be a high-rise financial center and free trade zone see Fig. 0.6). Melaka Gateway, which is due for completion in 2025, also includes a mammoth deep-water port (that can handle vessels up to 12,000 TEUs, a measure essentially equal to a cargo container). The port will be 25–30 meters deep with a 3-kilometer-long wharf that can accommodate huge container vessels and tankers carrying oil and liquefied natural gas, and is projected to accommodate more shipping traffic than Singapore. Next to the port will be a storage facility with capacity for 5 million containers. Finally, Melaka Gateway will include a Maritime Natural Park.
Melaka Gateway is one of the largest “One Belt, One Road” infrastructure projects that China is building across Malaysia. As chapter 5 describes in more detail, OBOR—or the Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) as it has been officially rebranded by Beijing—is a gargantuan $1.2 trillion megaproject that spans the globe; it connects Asia to Europe through an overland route across Eurasia (the “Silk Road Economic Belt”), and a second one spanning the South China Sea through the Indian Ocean and Red Sea to the Mediterranean (the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road”). Numerous commercial infrastructure projects—including construction of ports, power plants, electricity grids, railroads, highways, industrial parks, commercial and financial centers, telecommunications facilities, and residential housing—are already under way, with many more on the drawing board.
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These two respective experiences—one highlighting America’s hard military power and the other China’s soft economic power—are emblematic of the respective roles of the two competing powers where they meet in Southeast Asia today. While illustrative, they both are somewhat stereotypical and misleading. That is, both the United States and China use a much broader range of mechanisms and have established much deeper footprints across the region than their respective military and economic presence would suggest. While each power has its own comparative advantages, both possess and deploy an array of instruments in a range of sectors—diplomatic, commercial, cultural, military, technological, and other spheres—and they bring these comprehensive capabilities to bear both vis-à-vis regional countries and in their incipient competition with each other.
In this book I examine these instruments in Beijing’s and Washington’s “toolboxes,” the legacies of each power’s historical interactions with the region, how the ten different Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) states in the region all interact with—and navigate between—the United States and China, and I peer into the future to anticipate how their incipient rivalry may play out. As comprehensive rivalry between the United States and China is now the major defining feature of international relations, indefinitely into the future, it is of global significance and consequence how this strategic competition evolves out in Southeast Asia. The region is extremely important in its own right, but it is also a microcosm of many of the features of US-China great power rivalry that is taking place worldwide.
For many decades I have written about US-China relations and Chinese foreign policy, publishing numerous books and articles about various aspects of these subjects. But Southeast Asia had never attracted my close attention. I regret this, as I have come to “discover” it late in my career. But better late than never, as they say. Having now done so, I find myself absolutely fascinated by the rich cultures and complexities of the societies and states in the region—and this is a new love affair that will continue for the rest of my life. In my scholarship, I also very much like to research and write about things that are new and about which I do not know much. Thus, book writing for me has always been a true educational exploration. Some scholars, indeed most, spend their entire careers working on one or two relatively narrowly defined subfields. I have never been this way. I like new puzzles. And this volume has been a particularly challenging—but rewarding—experience.
However, precisely because I am not an expert and do not have a long career of working on Southeast Asia, I am hyperconscious of what I do not know about the region (a great deal). I thus must offer a sincere apology to those many specialists in the field of Southeast Asian studies for the “overview” nature of this study, and any errors contained herein. Both China’s and America’s relations with the region, and the histories of the individual countries themselves, are all exceedingly complex. It is indeed a daunting and impossible task—indeed probably a superfluous undertaking—to try and capture these complex histories (particularly in chapters 2 and 4). I can hear many readers asking, “What about this or that?” There is, therefore, an inevitable degree of generalization in this study. I am also not an historian by training—but I have tried my best to capture these histories accurately and to provide readers with a broad sense of how the past has shaped the present. With these caveats, I have done my best to explore and capture the multilayered chessboard of interactions by the United States and China with the nations by Southeast Asia.