Published 28 Nov 2024
Authors: Hoang Thi Ha|Pham Thi Phuong Thao
Institutional balancing has become a key strategy in US-China strategic competition, with both powers taking different approaches in leveraging their institutional networks to advance their strategic agenda. Southeast Asian countries have straddled both institutional realms advocated respectively by China and the US, while continuing to leverage ASEAN-led mechanisms to advance their interests.
Speaking at Johns Hopkins University in 2023, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared that the post-Cold War order was over. The statement underscores a pivotal shift in the American liberal elite’s thinking about the world order, signaling that the US – the principal architect and guarantor of the modern international system – is fundamentally recalibrating its worldview and strategic approach to address new global realities. Meanwhile, China under President Xi Jinping has intensified its efforts to “lead the reform of the global governance system” towards what it upholds as “true multilateralism”. As both superpowers seek to re-order the world, institutional balancing has become a key strategy in their competition. This involves their respective efforts of creation, expansion, adaptation and/or co-option of international institutions, resulting in an increasingly fragmented and contested global system.
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