Forging a regional strategy

It was to be expected that international politics in Southeast Asia would change with the greater weight of participation of extra-regional powers. However, the speed with which that change has taken place, barely two years after the American pivot and Beijing’s greater assertiveness in the South China Sea, has taken many by surprise. The dynamics of the new geopolitics of Southeast have undoubtedly driven a deterioration in regional order, as the pressures and inducements of the superpowers incentivise bilateral dealmaking over multilateral arrangements. Whether a new system of order needs to be constructed, or the present architecture needs to be repaired and augmented, is a matter regional states urgently need to address – and will only be able to do so effectively along with those extra-regional powers.