RSIS Book Launch Webinar of “Where Great Powers Meet: America and China in Southeast Asia”
25 February 2021
Southeast Asia is a region of critical global importance, and it is an increasing theatre of great power competition. As the eminent scholar David Shambaugh explains in Where Great Powers Meet, the United States and China are engaged in a broad-gauged and global competition for power, which is intensifying across Southeast Asia. The United States and China constantly vie for position and influence across this enormously significant region – and the outcome of this contest will do much to determine the future of the entire Indo-Pacific regional order. Specifically, Dr Shambaugh explores whether the region is becoming a new Chinese sphere of influence – or whether the ASEAN states will be able to successfully “hedge” and maintain a multinational balance of power. Just as importantly, to the extent that there is a global “power transition” occurring from the US to China, the fate of Southeast Asia will be a good indicator of how it may play out elsewhere.