Richard Heydarian

If, as many analysts hold, 2020 marked the start of a turning point in global history, 2021 will be the first year were we begin to see the consequences. For Southeast Asia, it will be an eventful year. The incoming Biden administration will look to shore up its influence on the region, and Southeast Asian states will be keen to see what to expect from a post-Trump United States. COVID-19, meanwhile, will continue to be the most pressing issue, with potentially lasting ramifications for China’s role in the region. And, of course, there are long-standing problems like the South China Sea disputes and broader U.S.-China competition to be wrestle with as well.

In this interview, The Diplomat’s Sebastian Strangio asks Richard Heydarian, a Manila-based academic and author of “The Rise of Duterte” and “The Indo-Pacific: Trump, China and the New Struggle for Global Mastery,” about the biggest issues facing Southeast Asia in 2021.

In terms of its personnel, the incoming Biden administration looks something like a third Obama term, which would seem to suggest a break from Trump’s approach to foreign policy in general, and the Indo-Pacific in particular. Do you think the incoming administration will represent continuity or change in its Southeast Asia policy? If the latter, where do you expect the change to come?

While it’s true that President-elect Joe Biden signaled his categorical repudiation of Trump-era unilateralism by declaring “America is back,” there is a reason why the former vice president also made it crystal clear that “this is not a third Obama term.” One needs not to be a refined dialectician to figure out that it’s impossible to return to a past that has changed beyond recognition. At best, Biden can and should improve on the brazen deficiencies of his predecessors’ China policy, not only Trump’s but also those of his Democratic predecessors since the end of Cold War. The most realistic option is a “Cold Peace” with China, whereby Biden simultaneously seeks détente and cooperation in areas of common understanding, but also vigorously pushes back against any Chinese strategic aggression.

On one hand, Biden himself as well as his top advisers, including Ely Ratner, have acknowledged that the decades-long “engagement” strategy toward China has been a catastrophic failure: It has allowed Beijing to reap the economic benefits of U.S.-sponsored globalization without assimilating the fundamental tenets of liberal international order. In short, multiple American administrations foolishly underestimated Chinese statecraft, its hegemonic ambitions, and mercantilist acumen.

In the case of Obama, he was simply too predictable and risk-averse to prevent China from radically reshaping the global order with Chinese characteristics. The most potent expression of Obama-era strategic infecundity is the unprecedented, years-long geoengineering and, soon after, all-out militarization of the South China Sea disputes. Way more than the “Syria red line” debacle, it was actually Obama’s practical abandonment of the Philippines, a treaty ally, during the 2012 Scarborough Shoal crisis that emboldened China’s worst instincts. And what was Obama’s response to China’s mega economic projects from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to the Belt and Road Initiative? Snobbery and nonchalance, if not fecklessness? Biden clearly recognizes this, which perfectly explains his unmistakable abandonment of the whole “strategic empathy” gibberish in the early-2010s.

And then there is the curious case of Trump, who throughout four tumultuous years had dramatically altered America’s place in the world but, even more crucially, accelerated China’s march toward geopolitical primacy, especially in Southeast Asia. No amount of “strategic reassurance” can undo the damage Trump has inflicted on America’s long-held position as a flagship democracy. A “third Obama term” means a foolish denial of this inescapable geopolitical reality. Meanwhile, one can’t deny the fact that one reason Trump is immensely popular in places such as Vietnam, India, and the Philippines is because he has stood up to China in ways neither Obama nor any post-Nixon American president dared to. With American and global opinion increasingly hardening against China, a full-scale rejection of Trump’s Asia policy is both politically impractical and strategically foolish.

Fortunately, there are signs that Biden is aiming to triangulate the best policies of both his immediate predecessors through what can be termed as “new multilateralist” strategy: Maintain pressure on China (Trumpian) but through allies (Obamaesque). Biden’s top cabinet picks, Antony Blinken (secretary of state) and Lloyd Austin (secretary of defense) are consummate multilateralists, who are by no means foreign policy doves. They have, as has national security adviser pick Jake Sullivan, made it clear that their disagreement with Trump’s China policy is more tactical than strategic. The best way to “constrain” China’s ambitions, since it can’t be “contained” in a Cold War fashion, is through a robust network of allies and strategic partners.

In this sense, Biden can have selective continuity with the Trump era but under a smarter and more differentiated strategy, which by no means is a return to the Obama and that whole post-Nixon era of engagement-before-all approach toward China. For instance, aggressive FONOPs in the South China Sea will continue, and so will tightening defense cooperation with key regional players. But there will also be focus on reviving the TPP under American leadership and in an expanded form, likely drawing in other key Asian economies such as Indonesia, South Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines. Meanwhile, I expect more Sino-American cooperation on climate change, global public health, and likely even on North Korea and nuclear non-proliferation. I believe this compartmentalized approach will also be very helpful in places such as Southeast Asia, where key players have been fretting over Trumpian “Cold War” confrontational policy as well as Obama’s strategic reticence.

The South China Sea has emerged as a de facto flashpoint for simmering U.S.-China tensions. What is your outlook for the disputes in 2021?

As someone who has covered the disputes, almost on a daily basis, for the past decade, I see this more like a long-drawn boxing match than a cowboy duel. Beijing is clearly in a dominant position, partly thanks to Obama-era policies but also the brazen cowardice of many Southeast Asian leaders in the face of Chinese intimidation. But the reality is that Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Taiwan are all holding on to their prized possessions across the Spratlys. To say that it’s “game over” and that “China has won” is frankly just ignorant and foolishly fatalistic. Few of China’s rivals can afford to lose all those possessions to China without provoking revolts at home. China is not unique in terms of maritime “nationalism” in the region.

I expect China to consolidate its existing gains, namely reclamation and militarization of its occupied land features, then flirt with further gray zone intimidation of its rivals through its armada of militia forces. Aware of bipartisan consensus on China in Washington, I’m not sure Beijing wants to provoke Biden into direct confrontation in his first year in office. Biden is no Obama. So any “game changer” move – a full-fledged ADIZ across the South China Sea, or coercive occupation of Philippine or Vietnamese islands – will likely come right after. But then again, as in boxing, sudden knockouts can happen, and Xi Jinping has his own Trumpian instincts for disruptive policies, too. But I rather bet on China’s more cautious than reckless instincts for this year, especially following the geopolitical tumult that was Trump.

Brunei, which has just taken up the chairmanship of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), is possibly the hardest nations in Southeast Asia to read. What approach do you think Brunei will take to its chairmanship, especially toward the question of the South China Sea disputes?

Frankly, I don’t expect much movement on the South China Sea, unless there is another major oil rig or militia confrontation incident, which is likely and could once against prompt a vigorous response from ASEAN. But the reality is that ASEAN is stuck in a “middle institutional trap,” namely its inability to move beyond a semi-dysfunctional unanimity-based decision-making process on sensitive geopolitical matters. As an organization, ASEAN is simply a small and medium enterprise (SME) without human rights. It won’t do much in face of an assertive China unless it evolves into a more mature supernational body. Realistically, I think the future lies in ASEAN “minilateralism,” namely issue-specific coordination among key members, namely Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Singapore within ASEAN as well as with external powers, including the Quad (Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S.) and Euro-3 of Britain, France, and Germany, which have expressed their interest in upholding international law and freedom of navigation and overflight in the South China Sea.

Over the past year, China has executed a remarkable pivot from mishandling the initial outbreak of COVID-19 to positioning itself as a provider of “global public goods,” from personal protective equipment to coronavirus vaccines – particularly in the Global South. How do you think COVID-19 will play into China-Southeast Asia relations in the coming year, and what impact might it have on U.S.-China competition in the region?

For now, major Southeast Asian countries are in desperation mode as they grapple with acute economic contraction and continuing COVID-19 public health crises. Meanwhile, the Trump administration was a total disaster not only in its handling of the crisis at home, but also in its dismal assistance to regional allies as well as its opposition to global initiatives on COVID-19 pandemic management. So this gives China lots of leverage, and it explains all the nice stuff Southeast Asian leaders tend to say about China nowadays.

But the reality is that China, unlike the U.S., is the source of crisis – a fact that has not been lost on average citizens across the region. In places such as the Philippines, six out of ten Filipinos want China to be held accountable for instigating this global catastrophe through its initial cover-up and mishandling of the crisis. If anything, images of China’s “return to normal” will only deepen widespread resentment against an absolutely unapologetic Beijing. Not to mention, deeply ingrained distrust toward China and its vaccines, which will significantly dampen any Chinese hope of scoring geopolitical points out of the avoidable misery of its smaller and poorer neighbors. As soon as the dust settles, and we are likely looking at 2022 onward, expect the anti-China backlash to gain pace. So China may have some “first mover” advantage, but it’s far from assured how it can come out of this crisis as a supposed “savior,” given how it’s the source of the pandemic to begin with.

As a key tenet of his Asia policy, Biden will have to not only assert but actually demonstrate American leadership on this front by helping global initiatives to ensure affordable vaccines for developing countries, assisting the World Health Organization’s efforts to coordinate global solutions, and providing robust regional and bilateral initiatives to assist COVID-19 management in hardest-hit nations in Southeast Asia. The fact that the best-known vaccines are coming from America and Western pharmaceutical companies gives Biden and likeminded allies lots of room to counter whatever initial advantage China seek in the coming months.

Ultimately, let’s not forget that Southeast Asia is an extremely dynamic region, which hosts relatively large nations with their own sense of pride and agency. The “struggle for autonomy” is the raison d'être of many of the region’s post-colonial nations. This is not 19th century Central Asia, the site of the “Great Game” among predatory empires, but instead more like the mid-Cold War Middle East, where the likes of Iran, Egypt, and Turkey were able to not only play the superpowers against each other but also build room for maneuver and become captains of their own strategic destiny. If you look at today’s Southeast Asia, you have countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, and even the Philippines, which are veritable “middle powers” on their own terms. Within a generation, three to four Southeast Asian countries will likely be among 20 biggest economies in the world. So I think we should understand “U.S.-China rivalry” within the context of the rise of more self-confident and autonomous regional players rather than viewing Southeast Asian nations as a bunch of hapless, mendicant pawns on a chessboard of global powers. This is why, in my latest book “The Indo-Pacific” I have discussed the rise of a more rhizomatic and multi-centered order in Asia rather than the usual arboreal, hierarchical “U.S. vs China” reductionism, which is stubbornly in fad despite its obvious anachronism.

I can’t let you go without asking you about the Philippines in 2021. This marks the last full year of President Rodrigo Duterte’s term, amid rumors that his daughter, or another close ally, will seek to succeed him in 2022. To the best of my knowledge, this sort of “succession” has never happened before in the Philippines. Given his continuing popularity, do you see much chance that the country can avoid a “second” Duterte term?

Frankly, we may need a whole separate interview or essay for this! The long and the short of the succession question in the Philippines is this: In a country that has been particularly cruel to its three previous presidents – one imprisoned (Estrada), one placed under house arrest (Arroyo), and another harassed in Senate hearings and social media (Aquino) – Rodrigo Duterte has all the reasons to prevent a hostile successor from taking over. Given the gravity of his blunders and alleged misdeeds, including possible prosecution by the International Criminal Court over his deadly drug war, the Filipino populist would be foolish not to ensure a preferred candidate wins the next presidential elections.

Having failed to coerce the political establishment to embrace his constitutional change initiative, which could have allowed him to stay beyond a single six-year-term office, Duterte has three options moving forward. The first, and I think his preferred one, is to have his consiglieri and long-term assistant Senator Christopher “Bong” Go as his successor, not too dissimilar from how Dmitry Medvedev once temporarily kept the presidential seat warm for his boss, Vladimir Putin. I was perhaps the first to write on this possibility, which predictably elicited the typical politician denials back in 2019.

His second, and likely more viable option, is to have the more popular mayor of Davao and the president’s daughter, Sara, to succeed him, marking the first ever direct dynastic succession via elections in Philippine history. This would turn the Dutertes into a right-wing version of the Ghandis, the once powerful family that ruled India for decades, in the Philippines – a feat unmatched by either the Marcoses (the dictator patriarch was overthrown in a popular revolt) or the Aquinos (mother and son became presidents a full generation apart). Interestingly, Facebook recently shut down China-based Facebook accounts that promoted this option, with talks of a “Duterte-Duterte 2022” ticket, namely the father running as the vice president for his daughter in another historic first.

The third option is for Duterte to strike a deal with, and try to co-opt, a more independent candidate who isn’t necessarily hostile but perhaps even friendly. Here there are a number of options, including former presidential candidate and richest Filipino businessman, Manny Villar, boxing sensation and current Senator Manny Pacquiao, and arguably the most popular rising star, longtime actor and the youthful mayor of Manila, Isko Moreno.

On one hand, this means Duterte has lots of options heading into elections, where the state machinery and Duterte’s popularity could be placed behind a preferred candidate or two. On the other hand, if too many candidates run, a divided pro-Duterte vote could favor an opposition candidate, most especially current Vice President Leni Robredo. Interestingly, both Robredo and Duterte won their seats back in 2016 by only a plurality of votes, thanks to a bizarre single-round, first-past-the-post electoral system. But if there is one thing we have learned from our political zeitgeist it’s that anything is possible, especially in fiesta democracies such as the Philippines. After all, who knew back in 2015 that Duterte would be the next and most controversial leader in the country’s history?