Trump Administration’s Indo-pacific Strategy And ASEAN’s Responses

Since Donald Trump took office,U.S.has continuously increased its strategic inputs in the Indo-Pacific region,characterized by full-scope counterbalance against China in propaganda,economics and security,“whole-of-government support”,as well as a network of “like-minded” partnership.As the geographical center of the region,ASEAN is of great strategic significance to the U.S..Most ASEAN states have long adopted the hedging strategy to strike the balance between China and the U.S.in a bid to maximize their national interests.But with the rise of China,as China-US rivalry intensifies,U.S.tries to engage and escalate its partnership with all ASEAN members.Against this backdrop,the pressure on ASEAN to take sides is increased,and ASEAN Centrality and ASEAN Way are under threats.ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific comes two years after the roll-out of the U.S.Indo-Pacific strategy.ASEAN’s slow reaction shows its reluctance of becoming the battlefield of power competition,and its ambition of achieving regional activism by utilizing power competition.However,the existing literature mainly focuses on great power competition and regional security,with little attention paid to the regional activism of lesser actors and its influence on their participation in regional processes.What factors affected ASEAN’s strategic choices,and how ASEAN achieved its regional activism? A further study on lesser actors’ regional activism and power competition is thus conducted.By following a process-tracing method,this thesis analyzes the objective and subjective factors leading to ASEAN’s strategic choices,and concludes the approaches to achieving regional activism,that is upholding ASEAN Centrality,cooperating with other regional powers,and strengthening national capacity and international contribution.The author argues that the more intense power competition is,the stronger regional activism will be employed by lesser actors.To be more specific,this thesis takes Indonesia and Vietnam as cases to testify the above-mentioned hypothesis.The possible innovations of the thesis lie in research perspective and research object.The perspective of regional activism and the selection of two individual ASEAN states enrich the extant literature on the lesser actors’ participation in regional processes.