Democracy at a crossroads in Southeast Asia: A Critical Analysis

This academic essay was written for a school paper assignment in grad school. 

The power play to increase influence is still a prominent feature of contemporary global politics. This is demonstrated by the intensifying tension between China and the US in their effort to expand influence in the Southeast Asian region. In their brief article entitled “Democracy at a crossroads in Southeast Asia: Great Power Rivalry Meets Domestic Governance”, Stromseth and Marston further explored this competition between the two great superpowers and its impact on the domestic political structure of Southeast Asian counties. Their paper contends that the China-US geopolitical enmity is causing remarkable changes in the local political activities and structure of Cambodia and Myanmar. However, despite the detailed and organized presentation of facts, the article has inherent flaws in content and methodologies that need to be revisited and analyzed critically.

         The article illustrates the intended and unintended consequences of the US and China’s political behavior on small states. Published in 2019, the paper started by explaining the geopolitical context of the rivalry where China continues to rise and affect policies in the region at the expense of the diminishing legitimacy of the United States. It discusses how China seems to be encouraging a Sino-centric neighborhood of economic, political, cultural, and security relations by building new institutions and projects such as the Belt and Road Initiative. On one hand, the paper describes the United States’ response to China’s rise by mentioning efforts such as Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy and Better Utilization of Investment Leading to Development (BUILD) Act both of which intends to foster US foreign policy interests and balance power in Asia vis-à-vis China.

         The authors described how China and US behavior manifest in the context of two Southeast Asian countries: Cambodia and Myanmar. Cambodia, a small state with a strong potential to lean towards autocratic governance, has received financial resources, foreign investment, and other aids from China which affected its position regarding South China Sea issue. In contrast, Myanmar and the United States have developed sour relationships due to the Rohingya prosecution by the military. China defended Myanmar from international condemnation bolstered its political support to the military and provided an outpouring provision. 

         The article has strengths that are noteworthy. It has a good grasp of the declining liberal democracy in the Southeast Asia region. It made the readers see a glimpse of realpolitik in the context of Cambodia and Myanmar which I found very educational and interesting. This is evident in the very detailed and organized presentation of the facts and examples. Informative, it strengthened its claims by citing evidence. The authors were able to maintain a neutral and objective tone throughout most of the text. In addition, the article was able to come up with a good conclusion and practical recommendations on how to move forward in response to China and the concomitant diminishing of liberal democracy.

         Notwithstanding its strengths, the article has two limitations that need to be discussed. First, the intentional selection of states (Cambodia and Myanmar) as subjects and comparison units raise concern on the objectivity of the authors’ arguments. The two subject states from the mainland do not completely represent the entirety of Southeast Asian region since some states are archipelagos. It would have been a better case to compare and contrast a mainland state and an archipelagic state. To add, there is a biased tone in the voice of the authors as shown by their choice of words. For instance, the use of the subjective adjective “more assertive” to describe China in the subheading “Beijing introduces a more assertive regional policy” is different from the more neutral subheading to describe the US (i.e. Washington launches Indo-Pacific strategy). The recommendations of the authors also give away their position on the issue as pro-democracy and pro-US political scientists.

         Second, although there is sufficient evidence to build their arguments, the authors did not provide a proper citation where and from whom the data was extracted. Take the survey results on the favorability of China and US in Cambodia, for example. That section did not mention the source which poses some questions on its reliability and credibility. One might ask: What was the demographics of the survey respondents? How was the survey conducted?

         Indeed, the eminence of China and the US greatly affects the shape of global politics. As written in the article, the China-US rivalry in exerting powerful influence impacts the action of domestic political leaders in Cambodia and Myanmar. This tension has a subtle and explicit impact on the political structures and processes of affected states—autocratic Cambodia and transitioning Myanmar. While the well-structured and organized article enlightened us on the contemporary situation of (diminishing) democracy, it also exhibited contradictions as evident in the biased direction of the arguments and the questionable evidence cited. Nevertheless, the ambiguity and volatility of China and US relation call for constant attention and clear explanation.

*This essay was submitted as a requirement for POS 190 (International Relations).

*Still on the process of editing to avoid plagiarism. References are listed in the original file.