SOUTHEAST ASIA AND THE BRICS

 

(Article based on two publications on X / Twitter)

(November 4, 2024)

The fact that four ASEAN (Association of South-East Asia Nations) countries will join the BRICS association as partners is significant.

Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam are large and populous countries, each with a growing economy. Like the rest of Southeast Asia, they benefit from the proximity of two titans, India and China, the two most populous countries of the world, the first one with a booming economy, the other with an economy that is much larger, being six times the size of India's, and that is also the second biggest in the world.

Officially, all those countries see themselves as neutral in the Sino-American political rivalry, but they obviously wish to become part of the growing trading network that is the BRICS grouping of countries as aspiring members.

Of course, by doing so, they also became more integrated within the economic sphere of influence of China, the preeminent member of the BRICS and the most important trading partner of the ASEAN regional club.

If one takes into account the deep influence that China exercises on Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar, and alsothe important investments made by Beijing in those three countries, it can be said that China has a growing influence upon the whole of the continental portion of the ASEAN group of countries, and also upon a good chunk of its insular portion too (with Indonesia and the Northern Borneo parts of Malaysia).

In fact, only Singapore and the Philippines can be said to be firmly on the United States side of the geopolitical tensions currently felt between that country and China.

But the situation is not clear cut, since even those countries keep important economic ties with China, and since the US also continues to enjoy a certain amount of political support on the continent, especially with Thailand (a military ally of America) and with Vietnam (a country that has claims on the Paracell and Spratlys archipelagoes, and that was briefly at war with China in the last century).

https://www.scmp.com/opinion/asia-opinion/article/3284952/asean-wont-become-obsolete-just-because-few-members-join-brics?module=opinion&pgtype=homepage

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(November 4, 2024)

Southeast Asia is fast becoming a major engine of growth in the world, acting as a kind of relay between China and the West. Many Western companies relocate there from China to escape retalatory measures by the US. At the same time, many Chinese companies are putting factories there to export to the US and Europe by going around trade barriers. Also, the region has hundreds of millions of consumers, more than enough to justifies investments over there to serve the local population.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Datawatch/Southeast-Asia-expands-trade-as-a-neutral-hub-in-a-divided-world

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PLUS:  @charles.millar3 (X-Twitter)