Until recently, Southeast Asia was not a focus area for the US-Japan relationship. Avoid overreach and overreaction on the part of the US, Japan or the US-Japan alliance. Distinguishing what the US and Japan are doing, and how they engage a particular country in Southeast Asia, will require careful management.
Until recently, Southeast Asia had not been a region of consistent focus for US-Japan relations. Finally, a more assertive China is also pushing Southeast Asia toward the US and Japan and the US and Japan toward Southeast Asia. Regarding whether or not the US and Japan should cooperate in Southeast Asia together, in.
Finally, both the US and Japan do not want to "overdo" the visual of balancing against China. Southeast Asia welcomes the US and Japan's recognition of ASEAN's "centrality" and participation in regional multilateral organizations. A Burmese participant noted that the United States and Japan are considered the countries with the most active interest in ASEAN.
Southeast Asians have expressed a strong demand that the United States and Japan become involved in the social and economic development of the region. Southeast Asians have expressed a particularly keen interest in the role of the US and Japan in helping the less developed countries of Southeast Asia to redress imbalances in regional development. The US and Japan should act as catalysts for the operationalization of regional security cooperation within ASEAN.
The U.S. and Japan should discuss with Southeast Asian countries a possible meeting of the U.S., Japanese, and ASEAN defense ministers—perhaps on the sidelines of ADMM Plus. The US and Japan should explore the possibility of establishing separate trilateral dialogues with Vietnam and the Philippines, respectively. The US and Japan should explore whether they can coordinate equipment and arms sales to Southeast Asia as part of regional capacity building.
The situation in Southeast Asia does not warrant exaggeration or overreaction by the United States, Japan, or the US-Japan alliance. However, the US and Japan can adapt according to the conditions and interests of the US, Japan and Southeast Asia. Distinguishing between what the US and Japan do and how they engage with a particular country will require careful management.
The United States and Japan have affirmed the importance of US extended deterrence to maintain regional security.
The project co-directors would like to thank the Sasakawa Peace Foundation for its support, their respective institutions – the East-West Center and the Japan Institute of International Affairs – for their collaboration on the project, and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) for his support. hosted one of the dialogues. The project co-directors would like to thank Grace Ruch Clegg for her excellent coordination of the project and input into the report, and Naoko Funatsu for her background research in support of the project. The authors would also like to thank Justin Chock for his research and design of several of the report's graphics.
Tsutomu KIKUCHI is Professor of International Political Economy in the Asia-Pacific at the Department of International Politics, Aoyama-Gakuin University, Tokyo. He has been an adjunct fellow at the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA) since 1987. He was a visiting fellow at the Australian National University (ANU) and the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) and a visiting professor at the University of British Columbia (UBC).
He has been involved in several track 2 activities, such as the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) and the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP). He has published many books and articles on international political economy (especially regional institution building) in the Asia-Pacific region. Satu LIMAYE is director of the East-West Center in Washington and a senior advisor at the CNA Corporation, a nonprofit research and analysis organization based in Alexandria, VA.
He is the creator and director of the Asia Matters for America initiative, the founding editor of the Asia-Pacific Bulletin series, an editor of the journal Global Asia, and on the international advisory board of the journal Contemporary Southeast Asia. He has been an Abe Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy and a Henry Luce Scholar and Research Fellow at the Japan Institute of. The East-West Center promotes better relations and understanding among the peoples and nations of the United States, Asia, and the Pacific through cooperative inquiry, research, and dialogue.
The center's 21-acre Honolulu campus, adjacent to the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, is located halfway between Asia and the U.S. mainland and features research, residential and international conference facilities. The Center's office in Washington, DC, focuses on preparing the United States for an era of growing prominence in the Asia-Pacific region. Founded in 1959, the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA) is a private, nonpartisan policy think tank focusing on foreign affairs and security issues.
In addition to a wide range of research projects, the institute promotes dialogues and joint studies with other institutions and experts at home and abroad, examines Japanese foreign policy and makes proposals to the government, and disseminates information on international relations to the public. The institute, together with a large network of affiliated researchers, aims to serve as an indispensable resource on international affairs in a complex world.
