Washington faces risks in S-E Asia as Gaza war stirs anti-US sentiments

Govts with Muslim majorities may be under pressure to play to the gallery

- Shannon Teoh

The prolonged conflict in Gaza is deepening antipathy in South-east Asia, especially among its Muslim populations, towards the United States over Washington’s unflinching support for Israel.

This raises questions as to whether governments in the region, particularly in Malaysia and Indonesia which have Muslim majorities, will be under pressure to play to the gallery and make a show of slowing down efforts to forge closer ties with the US, said analysts.

While countries in the region court stronger economic ties with China, they have also sought closer relations with the US to balance the Asian powerhouse’s influence in the region, particularly at a time when Beijing has been increasingly assertive in its disputes in the South China Sea with several Asean nations.

However, the US “has never been an unequivocally welcomed power in our region”, said Professor Joseph Liow, dean of the College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University.

This is a hangover of things that happened 20 years ago, he said, pointing to America’s war on Afghanistan and Iraq in the aftermath of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks in the US in 2001.

This is “very fresh in the minds of many Malaysians and Indonesians, and I think that script is going to play out again, and that is going to create difficulties for the leaders of these countries”, he said at a lecture on Nov 1.

What is more, “the domestic political configuration today is far more brutal than it was 20 years ago, so that will be particularly tricky”, he added.

Indeed, in Malaysia, Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who in his first year in office is battling to reverse waning support from the Malay Muslim majority, is finding he has had to up the rhetoric on the Gaza conflict.