8 - Major Powers and Southeast Asia: A Restrained Competition?

Summary

Introduction

This paper highlights major power equations that have a strong bearing on Southeast Asia's international relations. While the interactions between the major powers impact on the region it should not be assumed that the latter is a passive onlooker. Acting under a regional umbrella the Southeast Asian states have generated certain norms of inter-state behaviour which guide the exchanges between the regional and extra-regional states. Major power relations are generally explained within two dominant theoretical frameworks. One is offensive realism which argues that great power conflicts are inevitable given the zero-sum nature of their interests. The other explanatory tool is liberal institutionalism with its emphasis on complex interdependence. This paper does not explicitly make use of these frameworks to explain great power relations but it draws upon some of their assumptions.

The presence of extra-regional actors in Southeast Asia with significant tangible and intangible interests of their own has had a major impact in shaping the region's intra-regional and international relations. Regarding the role of major powers in the region the regional strategy has exhibited two tendencies simultaneously — regional peace and stability to be ensured by the regional states themselves without the deleterious influence of extra-regional actors and, at the same time, reliance on bilateral associations with outside powers to ensure their own security. The two are contradictory in some ways but that has not prevented the regional states from pursuing these strategies simultaneously. The presence of external actors in Southeast Asia has been both due to the initiatives of individual regional states and the keenness on the part of external actors to fish in the troubled waters of the region. Managing the presence of extra-regional actors without losing complete control over regional affairs has been a regional pre-occupation. Since the presence of extra-regional actors cannot be avoided the best option, from the region's point of view, is to ensure that no one single power becomes a dominant entity.