Blinken visit to Southeast Asia highlights importance of potential battleground with China

Southeast Asia presents a ripe opportunity for the United States and western allies to diversify their supply chain away from China, making it the next major economic battleground between the rival nations. 

“China is a geographical fact in the region – it’s an economic fact,” Ashok Mirpuri, Ambassador of Singapore to the U.S., said during July’s Aspen Security Forum. “It’s been there for generations: It’s risen, it’s come down, it’s risen again, but the region has had to learn to live with China.”

“The United States has been in many ways a stabilizing force in the region, and we don’t see the United States as an outsider,” he continued. “We see them as a resident power in the region as well. So the both of them, dealing with a region of…