Great power Rivalry and Southeast Asian agency: Southeast Asia in an Era of US-China strategic competition

ABSTRACT Great power rivalry is a structural feature in Southeast Asia’s international politics which three decades of post-Cold War academic analysis and diplomatic activity has sought and failed to transcend. The acknowledgement of its return to a central role in the analysis of Southeast Asia’s international politics is both illuminating and instructive. Accordingly, this article centres discussion of three recent books on the region’s international politics around the following great power-related themes: the arrival of Chinese power in Southeast Asia; the return of Chinese activism and US-China rivalry in Southeast Asia; contingent Southeast Asian agency; and the value of theory in illuminating these dynamics.