It’s a very narrow margin and falls well within the margin of error. So, let’s say it’s a tie. That should still worry Washington because last year, the results were 61.1 per cent for the US, with 38.9 per cent for China. It’s worth pointing out that it’s a survey of elites, not ordinary citizens. So while it may not directly reflect popular sentiments, it can say a lot about the actual policy directions of the countries concerned.

There is another obvious conclusion: Southeast Asia doesn’t want to choose a side any more than Latin America and Africa. So while it’s par for the course that US allies need to follow Washington’s lead, the rest of the world, especially the Global South, don’t see it as being in their interests to join the superpower rivalry. Rather, they believe it can potentially cause a lot of harm.

US seen as warning China in plan for Asia-Pacific medium-range missile launchers

That neutrality preference actually works against the US because it’s the one that has been overtly pressuring countries in key regions to take a side. Meanwhile, China would be perfectly happy for the rest of the world to sit on the fence.

It seems Washington’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza is playing a big role in the shift found in the survey. The biggest change has to do with declining support and trust in the US with the elites in Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia, majority Muslim countries one and all, which see the Palestinian suffering as the responsibility of Israel and much of the West. In that case, the US has only itself to blame, rather than the Chinese having improved in the eyes of Southeast Asians.

After all, one in two respondents express distrust towards China, with 45.5 per cent fearing it could use its economic and military power to threaten their country’s interests and sovereignty. Japan remains the most trusted major power (58.9 per cent). The US comes in a distant second (42.4 per cent), followed by the European Union (41.5 per cent). China is a distant fourth with just 24.8 per cent of support.

“The ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict has emerged as a contentious issue in Southeast Asia, commanding significant attention in the region’s domestic politics,” the survey said. “Despite its geographical distance, the conflict has reverberated strongly across this diverse multiracial and multireligious region.”

The US, however, enjoys the most support from the Philippines (83.3 per cent) and Vietnam (79 per cent). It has been pointed out that the conflict in Palestine may have momentarily skewed support towards China and that it may move back in favour of the US once the war is over.

However, it may be argued that another Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines could improve relations with China. Also, there is no ideological love lost between Vietnam and the US as their current friendliness is purely opportunistic and pragmatic, and therefore unstable. As two one-party states that at least notionally are built on communism, Vietnam and China are much more ideologically aligned.

Unsurprisingly, Asean sees unemployment and recession as the region’s most pressing concern (57.7 per cent). Like it or not, its economic fortune is tied to that of China. That’s why China is seen as “the most influential economic (59.5 per cent) and political-strategic (43.9 per cent) power in the region, outpacing the US by significant margins in both domains”.

China’s mean score of 8.98 out of 11.0 tops the charts in terms of strategic relevance to Asean, followed by the US (8.79) and Japan (7.48). The partners of least strategic relevance are: India (5.04), Canada (3.81) and New Zealand (3.70).

Asean is also losing interest in the US-led Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), seeing it as moribund.

“More than a year on from the [IPEF] launch in May 2022, sentiments surrounding its potential effectiveness and benefits have further waned,” according to the survey.

“Positive sentiments about the IPEF’’ declined from 46.5 per cent last year to 40.4 per cent this year, while 44.8 per cent of Southeast Asian respondents “are increasingly unsure about the impact and effectiveness of the IPEF, rising from a 41.8 per cent share from a year before. Negative sentiments have also increased from 11.7 per cent last year to 14.9 per cent this year”.

Asean’s trade with China more than doubled in less than a decade, having reached US$722 billion in 2022 and accounting for almost one-fifth of Asean’s global trade.

Since 2020, Asean and China have been each other’s largest trading partners. The US is Asean’s second-largest trading partner, with trade amounting to US$520 billion in 2022 after almost doubling over a decade.

Why Russia might be warming to China’s belt and road plans in Central Asia

But while it may be cool to the IPEF, Asean is much more receptive to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) of the US, India, Japan and Australia. “[The Quad] continues to build momentum in delivering public goods to Southeast Asia,” the survey said. “The prevailing sense among 40.9 per cent of the region’s respondents is that cooperation with the Quad is likely to bring benefits, as compared to 31.0 per cent in 2023.”

Interestingly, the countries that perceive a greater likelihood of benefit from potential Asean-Quad cooperation are Cambodia (53.4 per cent), Laos and Vietnam (both at 52.5 per cent), all three having been torn apart by the US war in the 1960s and 70s.

I think this survey is pretty indicative of the state of play in Asean. The region it represents wants US-provided security but is wary of its economic initiatives. With China, it’s the other way around. It neither wants China to threaten its security, nor the US to undermine its hard-won prosperity, in a new cold war.

No one wants to be trapped between two 227kg gorillas.