ABSTRACT
US–China competition over power and influence in Southeast Asia has increasingly intensified over the past two decades. Although it is often argued that it could lead to a second Cold War in Southeast Asia, the region has seen more cooperation and integration than confrontation and conflict. Southeast Asian has also increased its importance in architecting the development trajectory in and beyond the region. This development is at odds with the argument, particularly by realist international relations theorists, that states lacking material capabilities, such as Southeast Asian states, can only play trivial roles in world politics. This book argues that competition between great powers in a power transition context, and small states’ pursuit of liberal capitalist economic development through cooperation and integration, give rise to an environment that allows small states to advance their international political autonomy, military security, and economic development in the international system. Empirical investigation using quantitative and qualitative research methods in the case of Southeast Asia, the US, and China provides support to this theoretical argument.
