How Southeast Asia is using military ties to balance global powers

 Southeast Asia is increasingly using arms deals and military-to-military ties with global powers—mainly the US and China—to walk a balancing act. However, as the US picks and chooses its “preferred partners,” China is cashing in, building trust, and deepening its defence ties with regional states that no longer trust America’s long-term commitments.

Salman Rafi Sheikh

Southeast Asia’s growing appetite for arms

Recent data shows Southeast Asia is making major arms deals with a host of external players, including China, Russia, and the US. His increasing appetite for weapons systems, however, is not simply about increasing their defence capacity vis-à-vis any external threats. If, for Southeast Asian states, the objective was to enhance their defence capacity vis-à-vis what the West describes as an ‘assertive China’ in the South and East China Seas, these states would not be buying weapons from Beijing. In fact, the logical step for them would be to downgrade their defence ties with China. Similarly, trends should indicate that these states are buying more from the US. As it stands, the exact opposite is happening. Data shows Southeast Asian states buying more from China than they usually do. Let’s also not forget that China’s increasing military footprint is not an isolated incident. It is part of its growing global clout. As it stands, China is already the largest supplier of weapons to major countries, such as Pakistan, in South Asia. Southeast Asia is, therefore, not an exception but a new normal.

Before 2017, the US was the largest supplier of weapons to Thailand. Today, China has already upset Washington’s dominance. Beijing is not only Thailand’s largest source of defence equipment; it provides nearly three times as much as the US, according to a recent study by the Lowy Institute. Its findings also show that Cambodia gets over 90% of its arms from China. Countries like Indonesia are also increasing their military ties with China, data shows.

In other words, Southeast Asia is betting that binding China into networks of cooperation is the surest way to prevent escalation

Beyond selling weapons, China has rapidly expanded its security footprint in the region through military-to-military cooperation. Between 2017 and 2024, Beijing signed ten new defence agreements with Southeast Asian countries. In 2024, Major General Zhang Baoqun, deputy director of China’s Office for International Military Cooperation, concluded a military assistance deal with the Maldives and visited Nepal to discuss new joint exercises and training programs for the Nepali army—though the country’s ongoing political turmoil casts doubt on whether these plans will move forward. At the same time, China conducted multiple joint naval exercises with Sri Lanka and deepened defence agreements with Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Why the trends are changing

Several dynamics explain why Southeast Asia’s defence landscape is shifting—and not in Washington’s favour. Despite years of U.S. warnings that China is the region’s greatest strategic threat, it is Washington itself that has been bleeding trust. The latest ISEAS survey of regional elites made the point starkly: in 2024, for the first time, more respondents said they would align with China over the United States if forced to choose—50.5 percent to 49.5 percent. That slim margin may look symbolic, but in geopolitical terms it is seismic. The trust deficit is now translating into procurement decisions: more states are turning to Beijing for their military hardware.

Trust in Chinese military technology has also risen. When Indian and Pakistani forces clashed in May, it was Chinese systems—not Western ones—that reportedly performed more effectively. That battlefield demonstration has not gone unnoticed in Southeast Asia. Indonesia, for instance, spent $8.1 billion on 42 French Rafale jets in 2022, yet Jakarta is now weighing whether to add China’s J-10C fighters to its fleet. The calculus is straightforward: the J-10C is cheaper and, in the eyes of some, combat-proven against Western aircraft.

This does not mean the U.S. is irrelevant. Washington remains the region’s single largest arms supplier, and its security footprint—built up since the Cold War—is too entrenched to disappear overnight. But the emerging pattern is unmistakable. Regional states are leveraging defence ties with both Washington and Beijing, not to choose sides, but to balance them against one another.

That balancing act has only become more difficult since Washington’s much-touted “Asia Pivot,” which has often been perceived in the region less as reassurance and more as pressure. Southeast Asian governments have no appetite for another Cold War, nor for becoming pawns in one. For them, hedging with China—even if they view Beijing as a latent threat—serves a pragmatic purpose: deeper defence cooperation, layered on top of already vast economic ties, can reduce misperceptions and lower the risk of open conflict over disputed waters and territories.

In other words, Southeast Asia is betting that binding China into networks of cooperation is the surest way to prevent escalation. It is also the best way to limit the room for extra-regional powers to turn the region into the next Cold War battleground.

The lesson is clear: Southeast Asia is not choosing China out of blind loyalty, nor abandoning the US out of spite. It is choosing flexibility. By hedging, diversifying, and drawing China increasingly into cooperative defence arrangements, regional states are buying themselves both security and autonomy. Washington may still command greater firepower, but it is losing the contest for trust. And trust, in the end, is the currency that determines who truly dominates a region’s future.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs