US and China press Southeast Asia to pick rival AI blocs

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (MNTV) — Southeast Asian nations, long insistent they will not choose sides in the U.S.-China rivalry, face a new test over artificial intelligence, as both powers press them to join competing AI blocs, the South China Morning Post reported.

Washington wants the region locked into Pax Silica, its initiative — launched in December 2025 with about 24 members — to build an AI supply chain free of China, widely seen as an effort to wall Beijing off from key technology networks. 

China, in turn, wants its neighbors in the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation (WAICO), which it established in Shanghai in July with 29 members, mostly from the Global South, at a launch attended by President Xi Jinping. 

Sources said Chinese officials had lobbied members of ASEAN — the Association of Southeast Asian Nations — heavily before WAICO’s launch, offering founding members “exclusive privileges” and pitching the body as inclusive of developing economies, in contrast to what they cast as an exclusionary American initiative.

Five Southeast Asian countries signed on to WAICO: Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, and Burma, also known as Myanmar. 

Only Singapore and the Philippines have joined Pax Silica. 

U.S. officials have pressed regional counterparts over their WAICO plans and signaled disapproval of their attendance at the Shanghai conference; Reuters reported Washington was preparing to warn about a dozen countries they must effectively pick sides or lose access to Pax Silica.

“Southeast Asia will be one of the primary battlegrounds for U.S.-China competition over AI,” said Jeremy Chan of the Eurasia Group consultancy, adding that regional states would try to hedge “but they may not have this luxury.” 

The rivalry has sharpened as open-source Chinese AI models increasingly rival closed U.S. systems; cheaper, more accessible AI, Chan said, will keep appealing to developing nations despite U.S. pressure.