President Xi Jinping paid state visits to Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia in mid-April, which yielded remarkable results. China has signed many economic, trade, and infrastructure agreements with Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia, strengthening its strategic relations. Xi’s visit comes at a time when the United States has launched a frenzied tariff and trade war against most countries, while Association of Southeast Asian Nations countries, which have particularly close ties with China, have been subjected to severe attacks, extortion, and intimidation.
The US hopes to force them to side with it and thereby alienate and isolate China in economic and trade relations. At the same time, Washington will use tariffs or security guarantees as weapons to force more countries to side with the US in its “showdown war” against China so that it will never be able to rise again and will no longer have the capability to become a strategic threat to America.
Since ASEAN is already China’s largest trading partner and an essential member of the Belt and Road regional economic cooperation mechanism and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, US President Donald Trump and his administration believe that if they can achieve their strategic goals by exerting extreme pressure on ASEAN, their attempt to defeat China will have an immediate demonstrative effect. Suppose this move by the US is successful, other countries will be more willing to side with it. China will eventually have to succumb to the US, allowing its global hegemony to be revived and continued. Therefore, preventing ASEAN from moving closer to the US has become a major strategic challenge for China. Xi’s plan to visit Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia should have been finalized when the US launched a global tariff war in early April. However, due to the momentous changes in the international scene, the strategic significance of Xi’s visits has been dramatically enhanced.
ASEAN countries are highly dependent on the US for trade and investment. To circumvent the hefty tariffs imposed by the US on China, many companies have transferred their industrial chains and supply chains to ASEAN countries and exported their products to the US. As a result, ASEAN has achieved an enormous trade surplus with the US, which has become a soft spot or Achilles’ heel for Washington to control, intimidate, and blackmail ASEAN countries. For this reason, ASEAN countries tend to respond to the US tariff blackmail with concessions, compromises, and appeasement, hoping to persuade the US to let them off through negotiations.
For example, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia have indicated that they will not retaliate against the US. Instead, they will actively seek negotiations with and make concessions to the US and try their best to reduce their trade surpluses. In this regard, Vietnam has been the most submissive to the US. Vietnam pledged to buy more US products, including defense and security goods, carefully review its monetary policy, exchange rate, and nontariff barriers, and ensure the correct origin of goods. According to Reuters, Vietnam is studying ways to crack down on the illegal transshipment of restricted sensitive items into China through the country and strengthen controls on the export of dual-use technologies such as semiconductors and satellite equipment to China.
Malaysia said it would conduct impact assessments and studies on key industries, mainly exporting to the US, to explore areas where it can meet US requirements. Cambodia immediately lowered import tariffs on 19 categories of US products. However, the US did not respond positively to the “surrender” and “plea for mercy” of ASEAN countries; instead, it issued more demands. For example, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro believes that Washington is not interested in Vietnam’s proposal to reduce tariffs on US imports to zero. He stressed that Vietnam’s “nontariff cheating” is the main problem, and that “nontariff cheating” includes “Chinese products being routed through Vietnam, intellectual property theft, and a value-added tax”.
In fact, in my article titled, Can the US Win Its “Showdown” Trade War Against China?, published in China Daily Hong Kong on April 10, I pointed out Washington will further implement economic coercion against China in response to its various countermeasures against the US. The US will also use coercion and inducement to divide other countries, such as reducing tariffs on them, forcing or inducing some countries to distance themselves from China economically and politically, or imposing economic sanctions to isolate and severely damage China economically. The Trump administration is negotiating with more than 70 countries to secure commitments to limit their dealings with Beijing in exchange for reduced tariffs and barriers to trade, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources familiar with the discussions. According to the WSJ, Trump administration officials will demand that US trade partners block Chinese shipping to their countries, prevent Chinese firms from setting up shop in their territories, and commit to eliminating the flow of cheap Chinese industrial goods into their economies.
China is fully aware of the malicious intentions of the US. On April 15, Xia Baolong, director of the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council, pointed out that “the US isn’t after our tariffs — it is after our very survival”. For China, the “showdown” launched by the US against China concerns the nation’s destiny and the configuration of the future international economic landscape. Therefore, China cannot give in to Washington and must fight back hard and force the US to retreat. To counter this, China needs to unite other countries that are bullied by the US to jointly maintain the multilateral and free international trade system, and refuse to succumb to American bullying, brutality, and barbarism. From this perspective, the primary purpose of Xi’s visit to Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia is not only to enhance the level of economic and trade cooperation between the two sides and build a closer China-ASEAN community with a shared future, but also to strengthen ASEAN’s ability to resist the US. With China’s strong backing, ASEAN can “stand tall” and bargain with the US based on greater strength. Judging from Xi’s visit, China has achieved remarkable results in preventing ASEAN from being forced to move closer to the US.
During this visit, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia expressed unanimous recognition, support, and joint maintenance of multilateral free trade, opposition to protectionism, and unilateral bullying. China has also signed many economic and trade cooperation projects with the three countries. China and Vietnam signed 45 cooperation documents, including one concerning railway construction, to deepen strategic cooperation. China and Malaysia exchanged 30 bilateral cooperation documents covering the digital economy, trade in services, artificial intelligence, and railways. China and Cambodia have exchanged 37 bilateral documents covering industrial and supply chain cooperation, AI, and development aid. China has also promised to provide more development opportunities for Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia.
Objectively speaking, even without China’s increased support for ASEAN, I do not think Washington, by wielding the tariff stick, can force ASEAN countries to submit to the US and participate in its containment and isolation of China. The US has overestimated its strength.
First, although the US market is significant to ASEAN countries, the Chinese market and investment by Chinese companies are also substantial to ASEAN countries. From January to August 2023, the trade volume between China and ASEAN reached 4.11 trillion yuan ($563 billion), accounting for 15.2 percent of China’s total foreign trade. China and ASEAN will strengthen cooperation in some emerging areas such as new energy, the digital economy, and agricultural technology in the future. ASEAN countries can’t afford to sacrifice the Chinese market and investment, dismantle the industrial chain and supply chain between China and ASEAN to comply with the US demands. Under protectionism, unilateralism, and the looming economic recession, the US market will continue to close and shrink for ASEAN. On the contrary, the tariff war instigated by the US, which is harmful to others and itself, will increase the intensity and scale of China’s deepening reform and opening-up, thereby bringing more development opportunities to other countries outside the US. After weighing the pros and cons, it is impossible for ASEAN countries (except the Philippines) to ignore their fundamental national interests and succumb to the extremely harsh and unreasonable demands of the US.
Second, even if the leaders of individual ASEAN countries are willing to submit to US bullying, their people will not be willing to be humiliated and put aside national honor, dignity, and interests. They will not be willing to be an enemy of China. Those leaders who kowtow to the tyranny of the US will probably find it challenging to keep their positions.
Third, rather than saying that the US bribes ASEAN countries, it would be more correct to say that it coerces them. Under the “America First” banner, the US is unwilling to provide benefits to other countries. It lacks the ability and resources to induce other countries, but it attempts to punish those countries that refuse to comply through tariffs and security guarantees. The US will not further open its market to other countries or increase investment. Instead, it will demand that other countries sacrifice their interests and make substantial concessions to it. This unequal “deal” is practically and morally ineffective in forcing other countries to surrender.
Fourth, for a long time, the US has not attached importance to ASEAN, and even has a bit of contempt and neglect for it. American leaders are rarely seen at important ASEAN meetings. During his first term, Trump missed several ASEAN summits. During former president Joe Biden’s tenure, to combat China, the US actively wooed ASEAN, upgraded its relationship with ASEAN to a comprehensive strategic partnership, and incorporated ASEAN into the Indo-Pacific Strategy and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework. Biden also participated in some US-ASEAN summits, but the interests and benefits the US brought to ASEAN were not worth mentioning. Today, the US’ strategic focus is on containing China. Even Europe, the Middle East, Japan, and South Korea feel that the US pays less attention to them, not to mention ASEAN. Trump treats ASEAN as an object of plunder and a tool to contain China, which makes it challenging to win ASEAN’s support.
In April, Lynn Kuok of the Washington-based Brookings Institution wrote in an article in Foreign Affairs: “The legacy of colonialism and Cold War entanglements that drew parts of the region into superpower rivalries and proxy wars left many Southeast Asian countries wary of aligning too closely with any one major power. … While the region values US security engagement and the US is its largest source of foreign direct investment, China is its largest trading partner and most US investment is concentrated in a single country, Singapore.”
Finally, the US’ foreign and economic policies are erratic, changing daily, and unpredictable. Their primary purpose is to harm others and benefit themselves, and Trump himself is ever more moody, inconsistent, and vindictive. In this atmosphere of uncertainty, unpredictability, and severe danger, ASEAN leaders find it difficult to believe Trump’s promises and doubt the reliability of the US in security guarantees. They are even less likely to fall out with China to avoid short-term “punishment” from the US, because this is not in their long-term interests. Moreover, it is even more challenging to predict what kind of country the US will be and what its foreign policy will be like after Trump ceases to be president in a few years.
I don’t think the Trump administration can successfully force ASEAN countries to choose between China and the US. Xi’s visit to Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia will strengthen their determination, confidence, and ability to resist US bullying and aggression. It will also encourage other countries to have the courage to say no to the US.
The author is a professor emeritus of sociology, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and a consultant for the Chinese Association of Hong Kong and Macao Studies.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
