US Seeks to Upgrade ASEAN Relations to Curtail Chinese Influence, Taiwan a Potential Beneficiary

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News Analysis

The outcome of the U.S.-ASEAN summit that ended on May 13 was a pledge to establish an ASEAN-U.S. Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in November of this year. Experts believe Taiwan, a non-ASEAN member, would become a beneficiary in the U.S. efforts to counter China in the Pacific.

From May 12 to 13, U.S. President Joe Biden presided over the first-ever U.S.-ASEAN special summit in Washington, announcing over $150 million in initiatives to deepen U.S.-ASEAN relations and expand “common capacity to achieve shared objectives.”

Among the initiatives, $60 million is dedicated to new regional maritime security led by the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), including the deployment of USCG assets and the transfer of ships to Southeast Asian countries “to increase the coastal nations’ maritime law enforcement capacity.”

Biden said that the partnership would intensify U.S. engagement with the 10-country bloc to ensure freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, a veiled reference to China. Although ASEAN nations are interested in receiving trade and investment from China, they are concerned about China’s military presence in the region.

Beijing’s claim to the South China Sea infringes on the sovereignty of several Southeast Asian nations. Currently, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has territorial disputes with several ASEAN members, such as Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, as well as non-ASEAN members Taiwan and Japan.

The United States is “committed to continuing to cooperate to promote trade and investment and facilitating resilient global supply chains and seamless regional connectivity, including for essential goods such as medical supplies, medicines, vaccines, food and agricultural products, commodities, high-tech products, and other essential supplies and services, contributing to sustainable economic recovery and resilience in the region,” the Joint Vision Statement for the 2022 ASEAN-U.S. Special Summit reads.

A director at the thinktank Taiwan Institute of Economic Research, Hua Chia-Cheng, told The Epoch Times that the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) does not force the countries to choose between the United States and China but seeks to reduce the countries’ reliance on China. Recognizing that ASEAN is heavily involved with China economically, the United States realized the need for a more diversified and resilient supply chain amid the global pandemic and to cement its presence in Asia.

“Reliable trade partners with shared values are what the United States is really looking for in the Indo-Pacific,” Hua said. “[The partnership] is not simply to reduce tariffs on each other, but to establish security and trust.”

Hua said the United States and ASEAN countries would need to negotiate and prioritize the fields to cooperate on so that IPEF partners can relieve pressure on the supply chain in the case of an emergency.

“Taiwanese businessmen and companies have been heavily involved in ASEAN trades for a long time, especially in the field of semiconductors. An upgraded relationship between the United States and ASEAN would be an excellent opportunity for Taiwan to play a more critical role in the U.S. supply chains,” Hua added.

In November 2021, China and ASEAN were upgraded to a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” according to a joint statement (pdf) for the 2021 ASEAN-China Special Summit. Since 2009, China has been ASEAN’s largest trading partner for 12 consecutive years. And in 2020, ASEAN became China’s largest trading partner for the first time.

China’s Ministry of Commerce called ASEAN a critical part of ​​its “Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)” and the new land-sea corridor for international trade.

However, as part of Beijing’s global expansion strategy, many countries participating in BRI have failed to make economic gains and suffered from enormous debt.

The BRI—which serves as a tool for the CCP’s global expansion—finances enormous loans to developing nations for building infrastructure.

A Chinese worker carrying materials for a project that is part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative in Laos, on Feb. 8, 2020. (Aidan Jones/AFP via Getty Images)

The ostentatious projects have been described as being a part of so-called debt-trap diplomacy since the often unpayable loans will force the nations to repay China with goods or land.

Chinese state-owned banks provide the countries with loans they can barely afford. The loans are then used to pay Chinese companies in order to build infrastructure, including the development of roads, ports, power plants, mines, telecommunications, or banking institutions.

When the nations are unable to pay, they must grant China assets like long-term exploitation rights for natural resources, or leases of infrastructure built using the loans.

For instance, in December 2017, Sri Lanka leased the major Hambantota Port to Beijing for 99 years due to its inability to pay BRI owed loans of $1.4 billion. This gave the CCP a key base in the Indian Ocean.

A general view of the port facility at Hambantota in Sri Lanka, on Feb. 10, 2015. (Lakruwan Wanniarachchi/AFP/Getty Images)

A study from AidData, a research lab at William & Mary’s Global Research Institute, analyzed 13,427 projects backed by China in more than 165 countries over 18 years and found that the projects’ total value amounts to $843 billion.

Antonio Graceffo and Danella Pérez Schmieloz contributed to this report.