Enhancing America’s Reservoir of Goodwill in Southeast Asia

Enhancing America’s Reservoir of Goodwill in Southeast Asia
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Asia Society
Published on Oct 12, 2017

NEW YORK, October 12, 2017 — Dean and Professor of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore Kishore Mahbubani and Diplomat in Residence and Senior Fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute Daniel Russel discuss how the U.S. can restore its global standing by reversing the perception of disengagement from the Asia-Pacific region. (1 hr., 15 min.)
Category
News & Politics

29 Comments
 Auggie Giuseppe
An admirable scholar, historian, Dean of one of the great Universities in the world, prolific author, above all a Great Teacher.
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Y Liu
Y Liu
4 months ago (edited)
Kishore is totally wrong here. Vietnam develops so successfully mainly because Vietnam has the big advantage of its boarder with China, since long Vietnam has been taking China as the role model and even copying most Chinese success developing experiences and policies, beside, it also has the similar political system as China. Then, you know who could give Vietnam the biggest positive influence.

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Y Liu
Y Liu
4 months ago (edited)
Because of new leader, son of Lee, his foolishness and his poor background Singapore's political and economical influences reduce dramatically. No matter how much efforts Kishore has taken, it would no help. Both harbours in Pakistan and Malaysia would be the real pain to Singapore, that is a good return to Singapore's wrong doings in Asia.

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Matias azali
Matias azali
5 months ago
Musyawarah and Mufakat need to be stronghold of Diplomat in ASEAN. For example in Asean, Indonesia Woman at board level are exceeding the rate of Board. As EU Quota for women in board level. Indonesia leading the woman leadership that delivery from thousand of talk. Singapore President, Myamar women leader and Indonesia various women leadership. Asean stronghold for peace and "Mufakat"

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jlkh03
jlkh03
5 months ago (edited)
Dean Mahbubani is perhaps far too kind - and I'm sure there will be many in disagreement with this - to say that America has a reservoir of goodwill in SE Asia. America really has none.

Will goodwill explain the Philippines president Duterte's disdain for US? How to explain the earlier attempts to destabilize Indonesia by encouraging Islamic extremist elements to topple an assertive, nationalist Suharto? Or current attempts to do the same in Philippines and Myanmar? Will goodwill explain the massive biological and chemical weapons of warfare used upon Vietnamese and Cambodian civilians that may dwarf the atrocities of WWII?

Diplomat Russel is a joker to ask for assurances from ASEAN to "get its act together". His pooh-poohing of ASEAN is incredibly arrogant and patronizing. On the contrary - how many agreements has the US broken, how many times has its commitments failed to appear, how many international laws has it failed to ratify? Many of the flaws he attributes to ASEAN are ironically part and parcel of American attempts to interfere with its affairs and prevent the evolution of a stronger, multilateral voice and community in this part of the world. But no one should really be surprised by this. If US foreign policy towards multilateral organizations is "I am not sure we want a strong UN Secretary General", I sure as hell don't place much trust in what the US expects of ASEAN.

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paulmaking1980
paulmaking1980
4 months ago
Nobody in Asia likes America! China should kick out the Yankees OUT OF ASIA!

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Persian SS
Persian SS
5 months ago
"Goodwill " from an imperialist nation? Lol

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Carnage Kabuto
Carnage Kabuto
2 months ago (edited)
Although China has dominance over ASEAN in terms of hardpower (trade, FDI, bilateral agreements, etc) they don't quite have the softpower like India and the Middle East does, and this has been the case throughout history.

Regarding India, the cultural similarities run very deep. Angkor Wat, which is on the national flag of Cambodia is actually a Hindu temple. Indonesia basically means 'Indian islands'. The successive Thai monarchs are called Rama (I to X), synonymous to the Hindu God, Lord Ram. Even the ethnically Chinese-majority Singapore chose to form a constitution that's similar to modern India by having a parliamentary democracy with the highest position of power divided among the President and Prime Minister.

As for the Middle East, whether we like it or not, Islam had and still has a tremendous impact in countries like Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. And unlike India, Saudi Arabia has used this softpower to their advantage in the recent decades by funding and educating the clergy in the respective countries. As a result, there are more Islamic radicals and fundamentalists in the region than ever before. But I feel like the Saudi power is waning and now we have the rise of Iran and maybe, the re-emergence of Turkey.

I think that it's difficult for China to have this level of influence in Southeast Asia. This only happens from people-to-people interaction, the Govt has limited control over issues like softpower. And softpower is more important than hardpower because it's harder to be curtailed or eliminated.

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çhgtxx 002
çhgtxx 002
1 month ago
He sounded more like too much exaggeration.

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jlkh03
jlkh03
5 days ago
Wow, long debate and discussion between Hanzi and Y Liu! I'm a bit late but want to share my thoughts in English:

Singapore-China ties have been strained til last year. But this was not actually due to anything overt that Singapore has done AGAINST China. It hadn't. It's rather because Singapore had not paid careful attention to how serious China-US rivalry has become. As we all know, the International Court of Arbitration case was initiated by the Philippines with US support. The arbitration ruled against China's claims in the South China Sea. But we must remember that a ruling which invalidates China's claims will equally invalidate any nation's claims over any low-level sea features. This is probably why Duterte chose to put the ruling aside. It didn't take a genius to realize it's not a legal victory for Philippines (although if you're getting the news from US you would be forgiven to think that Philippines won and China lost).

Singapore's public urging of its friends in Beijing to abide by the ruling deeply disappointed Beijing especially when Beijing knows that Singapore knows that its friends in Washington have not even ratified the United Nations Convention of Law of the Sea. Beijing ignoring an ICA ruling is not unprecedented; Washington has ignored several ICA rulings itself. Singapore urging Beijing to abide the ruling smells indeed like fresh irony.

Beijing took it a bit personally. Its reply was essentially: "Sorry old friend but we're not stupid and I really don't appreciate you getting involved in this way. I know you're into rule of law and your international reputation is commendable, but surely you know that there are dirty little truths in international relations. Surely you see the irony of the situation. The arbitration ruling was uncalled for and even the Philippines realizes it is not a legal victory for them despite what the US told them. The heads in Manila and here in Beijing are not exactly celebrating. What happens next should be between Manila and myself privately as it should have been from the start. But regarding the arbitration ruling, there is nothing to be said. Please be more careful with your remarks next time."

Also in Beijing's eyes, Singapore's leadership also took an uncomfortably long time to assert a more independent position vis a vis its relationship with the US. For decades, very high level US officials had spoken publicly about using strategic "assets" like Singapore as an "unsinkable aircraft carrier" to contain China and blockade the Strait of Malacca. This would cost China but it would also cost Singapore almost everything. In the past Beijing could have let this imagined threat slide but sometimes an often-repeated threat becomes a real threat 50 years later. Beijing needed to send Singapore a clear message. "Don't be used and don't be naive. If you let yourself be used, then I'm sorry but say goodbye to our economic relationship and the prosperity that you and I share. It's regrettable that you never really valued it after all." Singapore's leaders have since woken up and realized that sleep-walking into a trap of China-US rivalry (ie. being used by the US) is not in anybody's interests.

US participation in the region is VERY welcome in the form of good ideas and good capital. And the US remains an extremely innovative and vibrant society. But let's be real: the emerging middle classes of ASEAN are extensively connected to the emerging middle class of China and soon India. American engagement of this level in Asia will never be supported by numbers of peoples and geography, let alone differences in attitudes, cultural values, socio-economic development, etc. In this sense, US exercising strategic "leadership" in Asia can be no more successful than US exercising strategic "leadership" on Jupiter or Saturn. If there had ever been a remote possibility for it to do so, even then it was only possible because Asia was largely poor and undeveloped at the end of WWII. Those days are now gone and nobody in Asia wishes Asia to return to being largely poor and undeveloped.

Since last year, Lee Hsien Loong's public remarks that "nobody wants to choose between China and US" strikes me as a genuine, sincere statement. It's the real deal. The deep, very honest message he is saying is that no leader in Asia will sacrifice their nation in a US attempt to contain China's (nor soon India's) development. The development of 4.5 billion Asians has more to do with the development of 1.4 billion Chinese in Asia, soon followed by the development of 1.3 billion Indians and 650 million Southeast Asians, than the policies of Washington half a world away. That's REAL leadership versus very wishful thinking. The choice has already been made.