Le Hiep

Senior Fellow and Coordinator of the Vietnam Studies Programme at the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, researching Vietnam’s political economy, foreign policy, and regional security; he is also an editor of Contemporary Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asia Accepts Maritime Capacity Building, Not Quad Alignment

Southeast Asian states are open to maritime-security cooperation with Australia, India, Japan and the United States, but resist arrangements that make them appear to join a bloc against China, according to a Hoover Institution discussion featuring regional experts. Le Hiep, Sarah Teo and Muhammad Kharisma argue that Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia assess proposals by their leadership, purpose, location and degree of national control: capacity-building, information-sharing and disaster relief can be acceptable, while visible warfighting integration and Quad branding raise the political cost.

Hoover InstitutionJul 29, 202614 min read