BUILD ON THE POTENTIAL OF REGION
Beijing clearly reminded the place that” China is a great country and other countries are smaller countries, and that’s just a point” at an ASEAN-led conference, no less. Additionally, South China Sea claimants are well aware of what a geographically extreme China is capable of.  ,
Given Southeast Asia’s significance in the world technological value chain, Beijing’s most recent caution against any deals between the United States and other nations “at the cost of Taiwanese interests” is timely.
Trump, however, has also made it clear that it will revert to its royal instincts, declaring in his second inaugural address that” the United States will once again regard itself as a growing country… one that raises our expectations, raises our expectations, and carries our symbol into new and beautiful perspectives.”
Trump’s America First policy is merely an unfiltered reflection of the long-standing utilitarian US policy toward Southeast Asia, which has seen a number of revisions over the years, starting with the intellectual conflict that divided the continent from the intense Global War on Terror, which declared much of maritime Southeast Asia the” next front” of its campaign.  ,
Beijing and Washington battle it out in the race for scientific supremacy, bringing the region’s significance back into focus once more.
On the political, financial, and socio-cultural fronts, Southeast Asia has undoubtedly benefited from competing major power statecraft. Plan leaders instead of rehashing old arguments about why the area matters to the self-interested stare of metropoles near and far may be better served in the 21st century by utilizing Southeast Asia’s shared ability in novel and inventive ways.  ,
After all, if the earth is to be rearranged, but really its stories.
Elina Noor is a senior colleague in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, DC. The Interpreter, the Lowy Institute’s blogging, originally contained this remark.