THE Institute of Strategic & International Studies (Isis) Malaysia, the premier think tank on geo-politics here, will convene an international conference on behalf of the Asean Institutes of Strategic and International Studies (Asean-Isis) network of leading Southeast Asian policy institutes and think tanks in Kuala Lumpur from Aug 8 to 10.
The 36th Asia-Pacific Round-table is expected to draw some 300 experts for a conversation on "Asia Pacific in the Age of Uncertainty".
One topic slated for a plenary session is the geopolitics of United States-China rivalry.
The conversation will focus on the possibility of a war between the two and how states in the region should navigate the treacherous situation and benefit from their competition.
A strategy of hedging and juggling power to ward off wars is an appropriate policy response.
For some, the US security umbrella provides the best option against an assertive China.
For many others, security is better served by China, which has invested heavily in the region and has been Malaysia's biggest trading partner for 13 consecutive years up to 2021.
Euphemistically, the choice between gun and butter is not always straightforward. However, it does not have to be that way for the region, which wants to avoid a war.
The region needs guns and bread. However, I am perplexed and intrigued by the attitude of the US, a long and distant maritime superpower that is obsessed with China.
Despite attempts for a rapprochement — like high-level visits that included Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry, and most recently, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger — US-China ties remain tense.
While the visits are aimed at promoting cooperation and easing tensions, China is distrustful of Washington's sincerity in offering the olive branch as it continues to up the ante as soon as the visitors left for home!
For example, the US on July 28 announced a US$345 million weapons' package for Taiwan, which violated the one-China policy that Kissinger had negotiated with China in 1971.
The weapons' sale smacks of US hypocrisy and interference in China's affairs.
Another incident that shows Washington's inconsistency: two days before the Pentagon announced the sale of weapons to Taiwan, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin was in Brisbane.
There, he accused China of coercion and bullying countries in the region, including Australia, when his colleagues were in Beijing making peaceful overtures.
The double-standard policy does not sit well with China.
The announcement must have unsettled his host.
While Prime Minister Anthony Albanese welcomed the transfer of nuclear-powered submarines to Australia under the tripartite Aukus deal, he would have worried further about economic and trade backlash from China.
The rivalry between the US and China is no longer binary.
It implicates other people and countries that are sucked into belligerent dynamics, often not by choice.
The either-us-or-them strategy of gaining support against China has upset the delicate political balance in the region.
Small powers have limited options in pursuing an independent foreign policy in a hierarchical international system.
Malaysia regards both powers as friends. Putrajaya has learnt to manage the hiccups associated with the overlapping territorial claims with Beijing in the South China Sea.
Disagreements about the territories should not strain our economic and trade relationship with China, a permanent neighbour.
The US is a transient power returning to the region after the Vietnam War to contain China.
Its containment policy does not jibe with Malaysia's position on the zone of peace, freedom, and neutrality.
Figuring out the US' strategic anxiety psyche, for example, like downing two stray weather balloons, can be mind- boggling.
Why is a military superpower threatened by the return of a civilisational state in world politics?
China is not the foe or the yellow peril that President Joe Biden worries will eat away the American lunch. As the world's leading economies, China and the US have a lot to offer each other and the rest of the world.
As Professor Hugh White of Australia remarked a decade ago, and echoed by Yellen recently, the world is large enough for the US and China to share.
The rival powers should bury the hatchet and manage their rivalry for the sake of global peace and stability.
The writer is a professor and research fellow at Universiti Pertahanan Nasional Malaysia