Interesting times ahead for ASEAN; and let's do the Geeky Cheeky Handshake!

Political scientist Mark Valencia echoes my own assessment that Southeast Asia (ie, the countries that now make up the ASEAN-10) seems set to, willy-nilly, become an arena for a contest for influence between "titans" China and the United States (ST Opinion, April 24):

He is also taking a leaf from Robert O. Tilman's seminal work (1984), "Southeast Asia and the Enemy Beyond: ASEAN Perception of External Threats" (but, notably, the Soviet threat no longer exists while it was extant when Tilman published his book). Valencia gives this contemporary thumbnail profile of several ASEAN members:

The international politics of Southeast Asia is already in its "interesting times". China is a skillful player and I suspect that when it recently sent ships as far south as James Shoal -- a disputed South China Sea maritime feature near tiny Brunei which has a limited claim (a small extension out to Louisa Reef) -- it was signalling to Brunei's rulers not to be over-zealous in pushing the South China Sea Code of Conduct agenda when carrying out its duties as the new ASEAN chair:

Still, if we remove ourselves from the pessimistic "half-empty" perspective, there is hope for a rosier, albeit long-term, "half-full" possibility if Western scholars make the effort to truly understand what makes China tick. Perhaps the lead in taking such initiatives will come from the West's private sector:

So, maybe -- just maybe -- Southeast Asia won't end up being an arena for great power rivalry. At this point, though, I'll hedge my bets.

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Meanwhile, one famous businessman who came to Asia decided to invent what I shall call the "Geeky Cheeky Handshake". Yeah, man, let's all do it too...