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Southeast Asia: quests for autonomy amid great power competition

in: Mark Furness / Niels Keijzer (eds.), International development cooperation and the emerging global order, Bonn: German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), 55-58

DOI: https://doi.org/10.23661/idp4.2026

Southeast Asia is one of the world’s most diverse regions. Its 11 countries have highly varied political systems, including limited democracies, such as Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim democracy; one-party autocratic regimes, such as Vietnam and Cambodia; and military dictatorships, such as Myanmar. (Re-)autocratisation has intensified in recent years (Tan & Kayusa, 2025). Although many Southeast Asian economies are growing rapidly, there are wide economic disparities both between and within them, as exemplified by the technologically advanced, high-income economy of Singapore, upper-middle-income countries such as Malaysia and Vietnam, and lower-middle-income countries such as military-ruled Myanmar. With the exception of Timor-Leste, all Southeast Asian countries are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), which primarily seeks to promote regional economic integration and maintains a strong commitment to non-interference in the internal political affairs of its member states (Jones, 2016). Southeast Asia has long been the site of geopolitical competition between the United States and China, and to a lesser extent Japan, owing to its geostrategic location between South Asia, East Asia and Oceania, with access to both the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Traditionally, most Southeast Asian countries have maintained strong economic ties with China, while sustaining intensive security cooperation with the United States.