India and Southeast Asia can join the US in an economic partnership to balance China
Southeast Asia, as it was in the 1960s and ‘70s, has again become the fulcrum in the current international relations and global conflict between the two superpowers –this time, however, not between the US and the Soviets but US and China, the latter being the rising delinquent, new muscleman in the town with deep pockets. Strategic location between the Pacific and the Indian Oceans, together with the region’s proximity to Beijing lends it an added significance in the emerging battleground, if not in military confrontation, but surely in rivalry for influence through other means. ASEAN centrality has to be rephrased as Southeast Asian centrality , as the region has become the fulcrum not the organization, which is not only divided on the question of China but also has failed to provide any leadership on any major crisis affecting the region, the latest example being the Myanmar crisis. Individual countries of the region, rather than ASEAN as an organisation have become the focus of o