The U.S.-China Rivalry is Not a Cypher for the World

The 2024 edition of ‘The State of Southeast Asia’ annual survey published by the ISEAS – YUSOF ISHAK Institute in Singapore caused a minor media storm. For the first time in the survey’s six-year history, Southeast Asia’s opinion leaders chose China as their preferred strategic ally over the United States in their answer to one survey question.[1] The difference was marginal (50.5% vs 49.5%), but most American headlines seized on the result declaring that Southeast Asia was ‘now more pro-China than US.’

Fast forward a year to the 2025 edition and the United States is back in the lead as Southeast Asia’s preferred strategic ally (52.3% vs 47.7%), but there seems to be little room for optimism in the West. Almost half of the surveyed opinion leaders submitted their responses before President Donald Trump initiated a bitter trade war with China and announced a spate of new trade tariffs targeting Southeast Asia, China’s main manufacturing outpost and rerouting hub for exports.

Despite a temporary pause on most tariffs and a recent cool-off in the U.S.-China trade war, most American and Western media analysts are now preoccupied with the question of whether the new U.S. trade policy will push Southeast Asia back into China’s orbit. Such media coverage of Southeast Asia illustrates a broader trend among Western journalists, foreign policy makers, and defense practitioners to view the region through the zero-sum lens of the U.S.-China rivalry. This lens is characterized by simplistic narratives reminiscent of Cold War binaries that paint countries in this region as either pro-China or pro-U.S., but such simplistic narratives do not stop here.

Southeast Asia is not a poster child for democracy. Over the past 20 years, most countries in the region have experienced some democratic rollback or authoritarian deepening. Many scholars see China as an enabler of these trends, but in Western journalistic, policy, and defense circles, such episodes are often framed through the U.S.-China rivalry lens as ‘good news’ for China and ‘bad news’ for the United States. As my coauthors and I argue in a recent Asian Surveyarticle, the relationship between domestic political developments and foreign policy attitudes in many Southeast Asian countries is much more complex than the simplistic U.S.-China rivalry lens might suggest. We demonstrate this in the case of Thailand, a long-standing U.S. ally that, like many of its Southeast Asian neighbors, has tilted closer to China over the past two decades.

The Case of Thailand

Thailand has cultivated strong bilateral relations with both the United States and China, but two decades of turbulent domestic political developments have made balancing these relations more difficult. Two military coups (2006 and 2014) and almost a decade of mass street protests (2006, 2008, 2009-2010, 2013-2014, 2020-2021) have left the conservative Thai elite more reliant on China, buttressing their ‘anti-democratic’ credentials. Meanwhile, the Thai society has polarized between a politically liberal ‘pro-democratic’ and politically conservative ‘anti-democratic’ camp. On the surface, these developments might seem to conform to the simplistic contours of the U.S.-China rivalry, but are Thais in the politically liberal camp more likely to hold positive views of the United States, and Thais in the politically conservative camp more likely to favor China?

To find out, we analyzed data from a nationally representative public opinion survey conducted between April 11 and June 23, 2022. The survey asked many questions about respondents’ perceptions of China, the United States, and other countries and regional groupings including their people, foreign policy, influence, economic importance, military strength, cultural attractiveness, and life quality. The most interesting was the question on U.S.-China alignment. Replicated from ‘The State of Southeast Asia’ survey, it asked the respondents to ally with either China, the United States, or neither of the two great powers providing the clearest indicator of the respondents’ foreign policy preferences.

To probe domestic political attitudes, we designed 10 Thailand-specific questions asking about the respondents’ voting preferences and political beliefs on a range of contentious issues, including views on the monarchy, the 2020-2021 student protests, and future military coups. We used domestic political polarization as a proxy to classify the respondents’ answers as either politically liberal ‘democratic’ or politically conservative ‘anti-democratic’. We then mapped these answers onto the respondents’ alignment choices with China or the United States. We found that Thai domestic politics is not a proxy for U.S.-China rivalry in which Western-oriented democrats are pitted against China-oriented autocrats in a zero-sum game of power and influence.

Support for liberal democracy or authoritarianism at home does not map neatly onto support for America or China abroad

Most Thai respondents had an upbeat geopolitical outlook. They viewed both China and the United States positively. In fact, there was little variation in their views of China and the United States across most survey questions, indicating that they did not see themselves trapped in a zero-sum power play between China and the United States. The only exception was the alignment question. When the respondents were asked to choose between China and the United States, 66.3% chose to align with the US while only 23.6% chose to align with China. This was a notable departure from their otherwise positive assessments of China across the rest of the survey.

Compared to the respondents’ positive views of China and the United States, their attitudes to the 10 Thailand-specific questions were more varied. Most respondents expressed politically liberal ‘pro-democratic’ views on questions relating to their voting preferences, decentralization, and the military. For example, they supported the idea that provincial governors should be elected. They preferred opposition parties that were explicitly anti-military, and they opposed future military coups. They expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of 2014 junta leader and then Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-o-cha and supported the reform of the 2017 military-drafted constitution.

In contrast, most respondents expressed politically conservative ‘anti-democratic’ views on the question relating to the future self-rule of three Muslim-majority provinces. Located in the south of Thailand, these three provinces are the site of an ongoing secessionist insurgency that has claimed more than 7,500 lives since 2004. While many respondents supported some degree of decentralization by responding positively to the question of elected provincial governors, they were not supportive of a greater regional autonomy. Most respondents were also divided in their support of the 2020-2021 student protests and monarchical reform, but given the contentious nature of both issues, such divisions were not surprising.

When we mapped the respondents’ domestic political views on their attitudes towards China and the United States, we found that while more politically liberal ‘pro-democratic’ domestic political leanings were weakly correlated with pro-U.S. views, more politically conservative ‘anti-democratic’ views did not automatically translate into strong support for China. In fact, a significant portion of politically conservative respondents also favored an alliance with the United States. This was particularly clear when it came to respondents’ voting preferences and their views on alliance with the United States or China. Respondents who preferred politically liberal parties were more likely to choose an alliance with the United States, but around half of those who preferred politically conservative parties also favored an alliance with America over China.

A similar trend was visible across most other questions. Respondents harboring more politically liberal ‘pro-democratic’ views tended to align more with the United States, while those with politically conservative ‘anti-democratic’ views tended to favor China. However, the difference was often marginal, demonstrating that citizens’ domestic political leanings and foreign policy attitudes were motivated by different concerns. For example, we found the respondents’ support for the reform of the 2017 military-drafted constitution and elected provincial governors, along with their opposition to future military coups, to be weakly correlated with pro-U.S. attitudes. Conversely, we found the respondents’ opposition to the reform of the monarchy and support for General Prayuth’s performance to be weakly correlated with more pro-China views. The key point here is that all were weak correlations, we did not find grounds for a strong support for China, even among the more conservative learning respondents.

Many conservative leaning respondents were happy to support authoritarian trends at home, while aligning themselves with the liberal powers internationally. This indicates that Thai people’s attitudes towards China and the United States are motivated by pragmatic rather than ideological concerns. Thailand has an export-oriented economy and relies on alliances with larger powers for its external security, but it also remains proud of its largely independent history. It is the only Southeast Asian country that was never formally colonized. As such, it is not surprising that most respondents would like to see a balanced foreign policy approach – one that cultivates good relations with both China and the United States, and indeed, a host of other powers and regional groupings. In this context, the respondents’ preference for an alignment with the United States might be also read as a counterbalance to the Thai elite’s tilt towards China, especially in the years following the 2014 military coup.