How times have changed. Under Mr Trump’s successor, President Joe Biden, the trade war with China has intensified, fueled by geopolitical, ideological and military rivalry that has sometimes threatened conflict. On the Chinese side, the all-powerful President Xi Jinping is talking about a titanic struggle with the US-led West. On US enterprise, Mr Biden announced tougher restrictions in October to prevent Chinese companies from benefiting from US technology – a clear attempt to undercut China. He broke a decades-long policy of rhetorical confusion in which the United States has openly refused to defend Taiwan, a self-governing island whose eventual reunification with the mainland is the Communist Party’s most sacred tenet.

In the face of superpower competition, Southeast Asians feel powerless. They are “grass, not elephants,” regional strategists say. Jokowi has gone from seeing opportunity to sounding the alarm. This month he told The Economist he was “very concerned” about the possibility of conflict over Taiwan. This could destroy the region’s hopes for growth and prosperity. He pushed hard for this week’s meeting between Mr Biden and Mr Xi in Bali, ahead of his hosting of world leaders for the G20 summit. He called it the “toughest” g20 ever. “We must not divide the world into parts,” he said in his opening address. “We must not allow the world to fall into another Cold War.”

Otherwise, President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine dominated discussions at the g20, where the mood against Russia’s invasion was hard. For South-East Asian leaders, this is not their struggle: only a minority of regional governments have openly condemned the invasion. Yet Asia is grappling with its consequences, including disrupted food supplies and rising prices.

Distant conflict underscores the importance of peace at home. Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said at a National Day rally in August: “Look at how things are going wrong in Europe. Can you be sure things won’t go wrong in our region too? Better to be honest, be psychologically prepared.”

A major security concern of Southeast Asian policymakers is Taiwan. They have long worried about a superpower clash. But it was thought to be in the South China Sea, where China’s vague but extensive “nine-dash line” covers almost the entire sea and has built military installations on sea cliffs. A regional diplomat says this has changed. “Nine-dash line,” says the messenger. “That’s not a red line. [For China] Taiwan is a real red line.”

Island in the storm

In that context, regional strategists are alarmed by the US shift in rhetoric. They think the Biden administration has gone too far. They also see House Democratic Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August as unnecessarily provocative. In response, China conducted live-fire military exercises around the island. So they are nervous about the consequences if Ms. Pelosi’s Republican replacement, Kevin McCarthy, follows through on his promise to visit Taiwan.

They also worry that lack of trust acts as a barrier to communication. In turn, mutual hatred grows. A Southeast Asian diplomat who speaks to both sides says Chinese officials see America’s political polarization as evidence of great power decline. Both sides complain that the talks are superficial. Chinese and U.S. officials have not sidelined their counterparts for open discussions about how to defuse tensions, the diplomat says. The pandemic, in reducing face-to-face meetings, made a bad situation worse.

When it comes to weaponizing technology against China, even America’s closest friends in Southeast Asia say the administration is taking the region down a dangerous path. It forces countries to take sides in painful ways. Singapore has already accepted that the city-state will end US-led supply chains in a world divided by technology “friend-shore”. A Singaporean official says it would create a huge dilemma for the city-state, which has built a reputation as a safe, predictable and open-for-business jurisdiction. Between the US and China?

Mr Biden and his team are aware of some of the region’s concerns. Just before the G20, the US president was in Phnom Penh, where Cambodia hosted the annual summit of the ten-nation Association of South-East Asian Nations (asean). He has promised ASEAN the “heart” of his policy in the Indo-Pacific region, a “new era” of cooperation – an acknowledgment that the region’s interests have been largely neglected.

With their economies tied to China, South-East Asians want US involvement as a counterweight to their larger northern neighbours. China’s presence brings economic opportunities, but also risks, such as military expansion in the South China Sea, debt from Chinese-led infrastructure projects, and destabilization of China’s ASEAN unity, which makes Cambodia and Laos client states.

If so, US involvement is welcome. But, one political leader says, it must be within a more “balanced” framework that offers long-term economic commitment, in Phnom Penh and Bali, Mr. Biden has promised. ) has proposed new ways to help Indonesia decarbonize. Many South-East Asians are skeptical that the promises will go far. Mr Biden’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework, a proposal for US engagement in the region, is insufficient. Only a few pockets of Mr. Biden’s administration, such as the Commerce Department, are pushing for greater transparency. Much of his Asia policy is driven by anti-China ideology, regional strategists say.

Then, there was relief in Mr Biden’s meeting with Mr Ji. This does not mean restoration, but communication restored. At least, says one Southeast Asian official, the two elephants have trumpeted a desire to avoid a descent into war. The grass gets a little rest, but for how long?