INTRODUCTION

Our guest today is Ambassador Scot Marciel. He spent over three decades working in the US government, including as US ambassador to Indonesia, Myanmar and ASEAN.

We start our conversation talking about the current state of U.S-Southeast Asia relations. Make sure you watch, listen or read the full episode as we go through a range of other subjects, including datapoints to watch in 2025 and the U.S. approach to evolving flashpoints such as South China Sea and Myanmar.

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GRADING THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION’S SOUTHEAST ASIA APPROACH

ASEAN Wonk: So welcome to the ASEAN Wonk Podcast, Scot, thank you for joining us. And we can get started with our conversation. There's obviously a lot of focus on what an incoming Trump administration would mean for Southeast Asia. But I wanted to start first by asking your views about how the Biden administration actually has performed during its term in office. There have been some clear wins, including upgrades with Indonesia and Vietnam, the upgrade and the relationship with ASEAN, as well as the minilaterals cultivated with the Philippines. But there have also been some challenges on the trade front with Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), and some issues in terms of the balancing between ideals and interests and sensitivities in Southeast Asian countries. As somebody who's been a practitioner for over three decades, looking at these actual relationships, how would you go about grading the Biden administration's record on Southeast Asia? And you can use whatever scale you want, whether it's one to ten or alphabet letters and and so on and so forth.Ambassador Scot Marciel: Yeah. I think overall, I would give the Biden administration pretty good marks. You know, on a scale of one to ten with ten being ideal, probably somewhere in the seven range. Positives are some of which you already mentioned: upgrading relations, some of the formal double upgrade with Vietnam, even though as a diplomat, you know, we used to make put a lot of effort into those things: they're more symbolic than real — or they can be more symbolic than real — but I think there's some real substance behind some of them. Certainly, the one with with Vietnam, and I hope the one with Indonesia. So those have been positive. There was more consistent high level engagement under the Biden administration than there was with the previous administration.

On the negative side, trade, the lack of trade initiatives — which is a bigger problem than a Biden administration problem — but the US political unwillingness or inability to engage in trying to negotiate new trade agreements is a real setback or or at least a real negative, I would say an ongoing negative. And also, I think President Biden's failure to show up at the last two summits. You know, people sort of say, well, these summits, they're just talk shops. But but to me, in my experience, showing up at those levels is really important to Southeast Asians, Southeast Asian leaders and governments because they use it a little bit to gauge the level of US commitment. So if you miss one at every ten years, it's not that big a deal. But if they see patterns of more engagement or less engagement, it causes them to either increase or reduce their confidence in the US as a long term partner. So I'd take off some points on that front. Overall, pretty good.

DEFINING THE SOUTHEAST ASIA STAKES FOR THE INCOMING TRUMP ADMINISTRATION

ASEAN Wonk: Right. And to your point, some of these issues are unique to the Biden administration; others are more systemic problems with US policy. And I think on trade, as you said, these are issues that that have to do with domestic pressures on whatever administration is going to come to office as well. I wanted to also talk a little bit about the stakes for the incoming administration. I think if you look back to the first Trump administration, there were some issues and challenges on Southeast Asia, but I think one thing that the administration did do was some clarity on China policy. And I think some countries in Southeast Asia looked at that favorably, others looked at it with a little bit more suspicion. But there was this dynamic of US China competition that we did get a lot more clarity on in the Trump administration relative to, say, the second term of the Obama administration.

But I think at the same time, even though it's just been four years, there have been quite a number of things that have changed in terms of the US position, the dynamics in Southeast Asia and just global dynamics in general. You can look at what happened in Ukraine, you can look at the crisis in Myanmar. But also, other notions about post-pandemic growth and sectors like artificial intelligence and supply chains — a lot of these things are pretty new relative to where the first Trump administration was. Most of the leaders in Southeast Asia are actually new even though it’s been just a few years. And actually, it's a really interesting dynamic on US China competition. US economic performance in the past couple of years has actually been quite good and China's economic performance has actually slowed down relatively speaking. You've advised US officials at the highest level of government about the stakes for the United States in Southeast Asia. I'm wondering, in terms of the incoming Trump administration — with the caveat that we still don't know who the cabinet level officials are are going to be and what the the makeup is going to be — what's your topline about the US stakes in Southeast Asia now relative to four years ago when the Trump administration left office? Ambassador Scot Marciel: Yeah. It's a great question. I'd say, first of all, the economic importance of Southeast Asia has become even greater, and continues to be greater. And particularly when you look at supply chains, which was a focus of the Trump administration and of the Biden administration, and I expect will be a focus of the new Trump administration even if it's overall not enthusiastic about trade per se. So I think there are some real opportunities there. You look at, for example, President Biden's visit to Hanoi talking about supporting Vietnam's effort to become a key cog in the semiconductor supply chain. Obviously, critical minerals in places like Indonesia and Philippines, etc. So there are some some real opportunities there, and the region's important. I mean, overall, as you know, ASEAN collectively I think, is the fourth or fifth largest US trading partner these days, and I think four of the ten ASEAN members are in the top twenty too. So economically, it's really important. Politically, it's important just because it's such a dynamic and diverse region. If things go badly, it's gonna be a problem for the region and the US and vice versa.

And then there's vis-a-vis China. And this is one of the the most challenging things for US policy makers. You know, people say — I say — we should engage with Southeast Asia on its own merits. And I think that's really true because for the reasons I just mentioned and others, even if China didn't exist, Southeast Asia would be a really important partner. But even in the context of looking at US-China competition, I think there's a little bit of an a a false dichotomy offered sometimes between, well, engage with Southeast Asia on its own merits or through the prism of China. And I think the reality is that you can engage with Southeast Asia on its own merits while still having China very much in your mind. So when the president or the secretary of state sits down with a counterpart from Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia, wherever it may be. Ideally, they're talking about the bilateral relationship, shared interest, trade investment, health cooperation, security cooperation. They both probably have China in the back of their minds. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with that.

But where I think the US goes wrong is it tends sometimes to assume that the countries of Southeast Asia see China the same way we do, which they don't necessarily