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Joanne Lin

For years, Southeast Asian countries have preferred to avoid taking sides between China and the United States. This year’s State of Southeast Asia survey shows that this approach still holds, but a more contested geostrategic environment is making it harder to sustain.
The region continues to feel uneasy about China’s entrenched influence, is increasingly troubled by US leadership under President Donald Trump and is more conscious of Asean’s institutional constraints. The weakening of confidence in the US is especially striking against a wider backdrop of mounting regional pressures.
Southeast Asia faces a more contested environment in which pressures are building on multiple fronts simultaneously, with the survey making clear that the region’s anxieties are no longer limited to conventional geopolitical flashpoints.
Even as major power rivalry remains front and centre, climate change and extreme weather events rank as the region’s top challenge at 60 per cent, rising from 55.3 per cent last year.

It is telling that climate risks are increasingly seen as a direct threat to livelihoods and economic security across the region, even as recent events in the Middle East have reinforced the imperative of energy security. Intensifying economic tensions between major powers come next at 51.7 per cent, followed by domestic political instability at 46.1 per cent.
The survey shows that US leadership under Trump now ranks as Southeast Asia’s top geopolitical concern at 51.9 per cent, overtaking the South China Sea dispute – suggesting growing unease over the uncertainty and credibility of US leadership. Global scam operations come next at 51.4 per cent, while aggressive behaviour in the South China Sea now ranks third, ahead of the Cambodia-Thailand conflict and the crisis in Myanmar.
Growing doubts about US
A significant finding of the 2026 survey is the softening of confidence in the US, with worry outweighing welcome in both the economic and political-strategic domains – a notable reversal from last year.
Confidence in the US to champion global free trade has fallen to 14.8 per cent from 19 per cent, placing it behind the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, China and the European Union.
On maintaining the rules-based order and upholding international law, Asean has edged ahead of the US, which was the region’s top choice last year. The US has also continued to lose ground to China on strategic relevance.

This loss of confidence is further reflected in the survey’s widely followed binary-choice question, in which 52 per cent of respondents chose China over the US, reversing last year’s narrow lead for Washington. The only other time that China pipped the US on this question was in the 2024 survey.
This could point to growing discomfort with Washington’s unpredictability on trade, its increasingly transactional approach to partners and doubts about its commitment to international rules and institutions.
Despite these losses, the US continues to be perceived as strategically important to the region, ranking as the second most influential economic power (15.3 per cent) and political-strategic power (29.9 per cent). It also ranks second overall in strategic relevance to Asean, with 42.7 per cent of respondents still expressing confidence in the US as a strategic partner and provider of regional security.


The growing anxiety over US leadership is juxtaposed with a China that regional thought leaders perceive as growing in strength. For Southeast Asia, China remains the most influential economic power at 55.9 per cent and the most influential political-strategic power at 40 per cent.
Among Asean dialogue partners, it again ranks first in strategic relevance, ahead of the US and Japan. The gap in mean score between China and the US on this question has widened to 0.5 in 2026, compared with 0.04 in 2025, and 0.19 in 2024.
Widening China-US gap
Expanding influence does not necessarily bring reassurance, however, and concerns about China remain central. The percentage of respondents expressing concerns about China’s growing economic and political-strategic influence still exceeds those who welcome it.
When asked what could worsen their positive impressions of China, for example, respondents point first to interference in the domestic affairs of Asean members (30.3 per cent), followed by strong-arm tactics in the South China Sea and the Mekong region (28 per cent). The broader message is that Southeast Asia sees China’s power as structural and unavoidable, but still wants it to be tempered by restraint, respect for international law, and reassurance.

If external pressures on Asean are rising, the bloc’s internal constraints are also becoming harder to ignore. About 34.7 per cent of respondents say the organisation is slow and ineffective and cannot cope with fluid political and economic developments. This concern runs through several parts of the survey.
On the Cambodia–Thailand border conflict, 38.9 per cent say Asean has taken active steps to mediate, but 13.5 per cent believe it has not used all the tools at its disposal, while 11.2 per cent worry that the involvement of external powers raises questions about Asean’s ability to address issues on its own terms.
On intraregional economic cooperation, domestic technocratic implementation capacity (30.2 per cent) and development disparities among member states (30.1 per cent) are identified as the main impediments, with geopolitical pressure close behind at 27.5 per cent.
The issue is not simply that Asean faces external pressure, but that its ability to respond is constrained by uneven internal capacity, differing levels of development and lingering questions over its agency.

Yet the survey also makes clear that respondents continue to look to Asean as the primary vehicle for strengthening the region’s collective resilience. The top suggestions for enhancing that resilience are resolving long-standing disputes such as Myanmar and the South China Sea (29.9 per cent) and increasing intraregional trade and investment (28.5 per cent).
In response to rising protectionism and nationalism, respondents place the greatest emphasis on accelerating regional integration (42.2 per cent), followed by deepening cooperation with like-minded partners (30 per cent) and strengthening Asean institutions that support the rule of law (24.6 per cent).
At its core, the 2026 survey suggests that Southeast Asians still see Asean as the region’s best available platform for preserving resilience, balance and collective agency. To remain relevant, however, Asean will need stronger internal cohesion, more effective implementation and a clearer ability to act on its own terms.
Joanne Lin is a Senior Fellow and Coordinator of the Asean Studies Centre at ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute. She is also a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at the MIT Centre for International Studies. This article was first published on the institute’s commentary website fulcrum.sg.


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An increasingly unpredictable Washington is making the region’s traditional hedging strategy harder to sustain


An increasingly unpredictable Washington is making the region’s traditional hedging strategy harder to sustain.


Donald Trump

South China Sea

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ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute

Expresses the views, ideas and conclusions of the author. (Eg. Enough of Crazy Rich Asians, think of crazy poor Hongkongers.)


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.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}An increasingly unpredictable Washington is making the region’s traditional hedging strategy harder to sustain

An increasingly unpredictable Washington is making the region’s traditional hedging strategy harder to sustain