A new survey revealing sharply divergent alliance preferences across ASEAN member states has exposed deep fissures in the bloc's cherished principle of centrality, raising questions about whether the ten-nation grouping can maintain strategic autonomy amid intensifying US-China competition.
The data, which circulated widely on regional social media, shows Singapore, the Philippines, and Vietnam expressing strong preferences for closer alignment with Washington, while Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar lean decisively toward Beijing. Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Brunei occupy a more ambivalent middle ground—the traditional ASEAN hedging position.
The split reflects not ideology but geography and threat perception. Vietnam and the Philippines face direct territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea, where Beijing has built military installations on disputed reefs and harassed fishing vessels from neighboring states. For Manila, Chinese coast guard water cannon attacks on Philippine vessels near Second Thomas Shoal have made the alliance question concrete, not abstract.
Singapore, though not a claimant state, depends on the South China Sea for $1.2 trillion in annual trade flows passing through the Strait of Malacca. Freedom of navigation is existential for the city-state's maritime economy.



