Southeast Asias Multipolar Future: Averting a New Cold War

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Southeast Asia is rapidly becoming a competitive space for geopolitical rivalries. The growth in China-U.S. strategic competition is creating deep anxiety among Southeast Asia leaders, China's rising power is felt across every corner of Southeast Asia, and many leaders are worried about the long-term implications of rising Chinese influence in the region. The United States' increasingly assertive approach towards China is welcomed by some governments, but the growth in tensions is creating deep anxiety about a possible new Cold War. How can the region prevent a repeat of the divisions and bitter rivalries of the previous Cold War This book argues that Southeast Asia is emerging as an open, autonomous region, where small and middle powers can maintain their sovereignty and shape the regional order. Despite new superpower pressures, the region is moving towards a multi-polar order, with greater agency for Southeast Asian countries. The key to Southeast Asia's future may be other external powers particularly Japan, Australia, India, and Europe who can provide ASEAN governments with more diverse partnerships, enabling them to avoid the bipolar blocs of superpower rivalries. The book argues that external partners are helping to shape the geopolitical order by supporting ASEAN leadership and diluting the influence of great powers. Southeast Asian countries also have remarkable capacity to manage asymmetrical relations and balance external powers. The book describes the regions history of managing great power relations, drawing on historical and contemporary cases. By examining the dynamics between Southeast Asia and external powers, the book predicts that the regions future will look entirely different from its Cold War past.

Reviews

Southeast Asia's Multipolar Future is meticulously researched and written in a lively and engaging manner. Through numerous interviews and conversations, Tom Parks refreshingly offers a view from Southeast Asia and accurately captures the visions and wishes of the people in the region. He demonstrates that smaller countries can shape their own future even in the midst of great power rivalry. In the process, Parks sees a way forward that does not necessarily end in conflict for the United States, China, and the region. * Selina Ho, National University of Singapore, Singapore *
By reminding us that the middle powers in and around Southeast Asia have an interest in, and an impact on, the trajectory of great power competition in the Indo-Pacific, Thomas Parks fills in spaces too often ignored by policy makers and commentators. This is required reading for everyone with an interest in Asia's future. * Allan Gyngell, National President, Australian Institute of International Affairs, Australia *
Thomas Parks has written an important and timely book, which should be read in all the relevant capitals, especially Beijing and Washington D.C. Parks deftly locates Southeast Asia in the wider context of East Asia, South Asia, and Australasia. The region benefits from multipolarity. * Tej Bunnag, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand *
Parks demonstrates Southeast Asias agency in the unfolding geopolitics of the region, smashing the trope that ASEAN states are just passive victims of great power maneuvering. A must read for scholars and policymakers focused on the Indo-Pacific. * Michael J. Green, University of Sydney, Australia *
Nuanced and insightful, this book offers an essential corrective to portrayals of Southeast Asian states as pawns on a Sino-American chessboard. Parks instead shows the region to be a bamboo forest: Southeast Asian governments bend to geopolitical winds but remain strongly rooted in defending their interests and autonomy. Parks illuminates how Southeast Asians exercise agency as they alternately engage with and resist external powers to craft a multipolar regional order. Anyone keen to understand international relations in Southeast Asia should read this book. * John D. Ciorciari, University of Michigan, USA *

Author Bio

Thomas Parks has led research and managed aid programs across Southeast Asia with The Asia Foundation, and the Australian Government (DFAT) on geopolitics, security cooperation, ASEAN, economic development, conflict, and governance. He is a graduate of Harvard, USA, and Johns Hopkins SAIS, USA.