George Santayana, a Harvard Professor of Philosophy once said that. “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Therefore it is relevant for us to remember anything that happened in the past so we could anticipate and know how to respond to a similar future event that has had happened.
History has told us how significant it was the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union to the world geopolitics. Not only for the US and Soviet Union but also for all countries in the world which then had to choose between the US, the Soviet Union, or the Non-Bloc.
To secure US interest at that time, there has been a lot of effort and interventionist policy to assure that “neutral countries” in many of Latin America Asia and will not fall into communist-led regime will then will join the Soviet bloc.
Southeast Asia is one of the important regions in which the US and Soviet Union try to maintain their influence. Many interventionist policies in the region such as in Vietnam during the Vietnam war and Indonesia during the CIA involvement in a coup attempt against Soekarno was an example of how interventionists policy against the government in Southeast Asia to avoid that they will become communist and lean more towards the Soviet Union.
Fast forward to what happened today, the geopolitical contest between the US and China is getting tenser. As many analysts observe that we might face another cold war when the world number one power is competing with the world number two. And there will surely be a geopolitical implication to the rest of the world. Looking back to what happened during the cold war, what can we learn to anticipate the geopolitical implications of the rivalry between the US and China?.
Many experts have been discussing whether the US-China rivalry will bring us back to some kind of cold war, where countries have to choose between one of them. In Southeast Asia for the US-China rivalry has put Southeast Asian countries in difficult positions.
In the case of the South China Sea, for instance, in the last several years we have seen how the US-China rivalry put Southeast Asian countries in difficult positions. China as a claimant and strongest countries in the dispute was often bully its Southeast Asian claimant states, while on the other hand the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo in many events have tried to persuade ASEAN and offer a backup in dealing and responding to China’s threat in the dispute. Even though Indonesia, Singapore, and other Southeast Asian claimants have already emphasized their neutrality in the dispute and will not choose between the two.
Therefore will the increasing US-China rivalry and competing influence will bring them back to interventionist policy in the region?
Indeed, most western countries including the US have a long history of political intervention in the region. In supporting oppositions, rebel groups that were perceived will foster their interest in the countries as well as to prevent the communist regime during the cold war. Even though in international law it is clear that the non-intervention policy is the basic principle in international law ever since the establishment of the treaty of Westphalia, it is was still happened.
Southeast Asian countries in many events have emphasized that they will not choose between the US or China in the geopolitical contest. Instead, they will enhance peaceful and strategic cooperation with the two that will benefit for the peaceful and prosper in the region. ASEAN’s outlook on Indo-Pacific is an example of how ASEAN tries to keep a balance between the US and China in the region and to keep the region in a neutral position.
While Southeast Asia is getting more important and significant in the world economy and politics, it makes sense if it became a major geopolitical contest arena between the US and China, where both are competing for greater influence in the region. Therefore Southeast Asian countries should learn from the cold war on how interventionists policy might happen.
With the advancement of technology, big data, and the internet, intervention might not the same as what happened thirty or forty years ago during the cold war and Vietnam war. Where there was a weapon supplied to a rebel group or even direct foreign military intervention. Observing what happened with the Cambridge Analytica where big data can be manipulated for an election, will presumably what might happen in this new cold war era. And it will be much more difficult to anticipate.
Another possible form of intervention policy could also drive by economic interest such as “debt-trap diplomacy”. In which China has been practicing to some pacific countries in giving them a loan in a huge number which they can’t repay. And it makes China in higher leverage.
This new form of intervention policy which will bring interventionist policy less obvious more difficult to anticipate. That being said, it is important for Southeast Asian countries to anticipate and strengthen its position in the middle of US-China growing rivalry in the region so there will be less or no form of intervention to any states in the region.
