As Blinken visits, who in Southeast Asia will answer US call for cyber, space cooperation?

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken kicks off his maiden Southeast Asia tour on Monday as the Biden administration steps up its diplomatic efforts in a region that has been aggressively courted by China.

The four-day tour, covering Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, will be warmly welcomed, according to observers, especially following earlier disquiet over Washington's commitment to the region.

It comes at a time when the US is pushing to strengthen its military partnerships in new frontiers of competition with China, especially on cybersecurity and in space.

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While Washington continues to engage with like-minded allies and partners such as the Philippines and Singapore, analysts stressed the importance of prioritising and refreshing ties with other Southeast Asian nations such as Indonesia, Cambodia and Laos, while urging the Biden administration not to overplay the China card.

Blinken's first stop is Indonesia, which Muhamad Arif, an international relations lecturer at the University of Indonesia, described as a "positive diplomatic gesture", as many Indonesians felt snubbed after officials from the Biden administration had bypassed the country during recent high-profile visits to the region.

US Vice-President Kamala Harris visited Singapore and Vietnam in August, after defence chief Lloyd Austin had stopped by the same two countries, along with the Philippines, in July.

"[Blinken's] planned trip shows that the US is thinking about Indonesia's central position in the region. I think there is a growing realisation from the US side about the strategic value of its cooperation with Indonesia," Muhamad said.

While several officials from the US State Department have visited Indonesia, including deputy secretary Wendy Sherman and assistant secretary Daniel Kritenbrink, Muhamad said a visit by the secretary of state himself "underscores the importance" of Indonesia in the eyes of the Biden administration.

Gregory Poling, senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) think tank, suggested that Washington's initial priorities in the region had been centred around Singapore, Vietnam and the Philippines - countries that were "most closely aligned" with the US - and did not include Indonesia.

Even as military ties continue to advance, insufficient diplomatic attention has been paid to Jakarta since Biden took office, said Poling, who is director of CSIS' Southeast Asia programme.

Analysts earlier called for the US to prioritise its relationship with Indonesia - a recommendation that was also in a recent report by the United States Studies Centre, at the University of Sydney, which noted Indonesia's "current and future influence" within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

In Indonesia, Blinken is expected to discuss a number of topics such as trade and investment, infrastructure, climate change and cooperation in the health sector, particularly related to Covid-19 pandemic, according to Reuters. He is then set to head to Malaysia on Tuesday and Thailand afterwards.

Blinken's maiden visit to the region is emblematic of Washington's broader efforts to further cooperation with Southeast Asia - including on defence.

US Army Secretary Christine Wormuth has indicated that America's military - which has traditionally focused on Northeast Asia - needed to expand its footprint in Southeast Asia, bolstering its cybersecurity and space capabilities as it prepares for a potential conflict with China.

Wormuth, in remarks to a CSIS briefing earlier this month via video-link, said that the US had already held space and electronic warfare exercises with Indonesia and Thailand, among other partner countries.

Andrew Mantong, researcher at CSIS Indonesia, Washington would likely work with Jakarta to build cybersecurity capacity, and could help train Indonesian intelligence agencies, such as the National Cyber and Crypto Agency or BSSN.

"BSSN faces few challenges, such as the fact that it is yet to be equipped with a cybersecurity law, which is now being discussed at the parliament, and its skills still need to be improved, to ensure its coordination function works," Mantong said.

"The US can offer training to BSSN on how to effectively and quickly coordinate all government agencies related to cybersecurity, cyber defence, and cyber diplomacy, as it has government agencies with similar roles."

In October, the US took part in a cyber policy dialogue with the 10-member Asean bloc, during which several areas of collaboration were discussed ranging from combating cybercrime to countering the use of information technologies for terrorism.

Collin Koh, a research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) in Singapore, said Southeast Asian nations would look to bolster their cybersecurity efforts with the US against malign actors, including state-sponsored ones.

But he noted that such an "emerging yet sensitive domain" was mostly likely to attract those countries that already had long-standing defence and security ties with the US - existing allies and security partners such as Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, on the other hand, have fewer incentives to promote defence and security ties with the US.

Washington imposed sanctions on Myanmar's military leaders after they took control of the country in a February coup, and Koh said all three countries exhibited a "general distrust" of the West.

"Cambodia and Laos fall within the strategic and economic influence of China," he said, making both prioritise "developmental security" and maintaining "strong economic and strategic ties with Beijing".

According to Carl Thayer, professor emeritus of politics at the University of New South Wales in Australia, "very little" is known about the sorts of cooperation the US is seeking in space, but he said the Biden administration was working towards an international agreement that would limit "destabilising activities" in space.

China has been firm in its opposition to US missile deployments in neighbouring countries. In response to Seoul agreeing in 2016 to install a US Terminal High Altitude Area Defence, or Thaad, missile system - ostensibly to defend against North Korea - Beijing cut off market access to South Korean firms, forcing a reversal.

Wormuth, the US Army Secretary, told the CSIS briefing that America's long-range missiles were likely to remain deployed on US bases, ships and aircraft for the time being - though she said the Pentagon and State Department were negotiating with partners and allies to extend that reach.

"The most obvious approach would be to flag the growing Chinese military threat as a way to justify and push for such types of cooperation," said Koh from the RSIS, though he noted that Southeast Asian nations would not risk openly siding with the US on sensitive missile deployments, such as Thaad, for fear of angering Beijing.

For Drew Thompson, a visiting senior research fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and a former Pentagon official, Wormuth's statements signalled a change of strategic outlook for the US Army, which until now has predominantly focused on the Korean peninsula.

"This isn't dramatic or immediate but a slow, steady expression of commitment," he said. "What Wormuth is trying to do is to get people thinking about a greater diversification of relationships and also resources so there are more opportunities for the US army to think about cooperation in Southeast Asia than they have already."

"Not everything is about China," Thompson said, citing multinational military exercises Cobra Gold, held in Thailand, as an example of how partnerships with Southeast Asian nations were inherently beneficial for the US - which he said was viewed as a "mature and reasonable" security partner.

Thayer, the politics professor, said "each bilateral relationship will advance at a pace that is comfortable to the receiving country", while cautioning that "the US objective of creating a network of allies and partners willing to counter China is unlikely to be realised".

RSIS' Koh said Washington should look to build partnerships with Cambodia and Laos - despite their economic dependence on China - and "more seriously" think about involving them in existing military exercises the US holds with other countries in the region.

Not all of Washington's security engagements should be approached from "a China angle", he said, even if "China does loom prominently as a factor".

"At the same time Washington needs to be extremely mindful of the political sensitivities in Southeast Asia that determine the scope and extent of defence engagements," Koh said. "Allowing the 'China threat' factor to override such concerns can't amount to a good policy of engaging Southeast Asian counterparts in deeper military cooperation."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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