Professional Affiliation

Associate Professor of Government at Hamilton College

Expert Bio

Alexsia T. Chan is Associate Professor of Government at Hamilton College and author of Beyond Coercion: The Politics of Inequality in China (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2025). She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.

Wilson Center Project

Playing Great Powers off Each Other: US-China Competition in Southeast Asia

Project Summary

China and the United States are competing as rivals in Southeast Asia. Why do China’s relations with Southeast Asian states vary? How can these states and the U.S. shape these dynamics? China seeks to balance seemingly incompatible statuses as an ascendant, responsible superpower and leader of developing countries based on shared experiences. Southeast Asia may potentially play great powers off each other to leverage a modicum of agency, albeit with trade-offs, for economic growth. Structured comparison of cases such as Cambodia, Thailand, and Singapore builds on fieldwork and has crucial theoretical and policy implications for our understanding of U.S.-China relations.