China builds Southeast Asia expertise as US lets it wither

In the contest for influence in Southeast Asia, the United States and China agree on one thing: the region is indispensable. Yet beneath the flurry of high-level summits lies a quieter divergence in how each cultivates knowledge about the region.The US is hollowing out the university-based programmes that have long trained its students in Southeast Asian languages, history and politics. China, conversely, is elevating area studies into a top-tier, state-backed academic field. Beyond a shift in academic funding, this divergence exposes a fundamental difference in the kind of knowledge each system values, and how those choices may shape each power’s ability to understand Southeast Asia’s complexity.In the US, area studies have never been detached from national strategy, but the funding model has proved fragile. Historically, Title VI National Resource Centres and Foreign Language and area studies fellowships were explicitly designed to serve national needs by supporting language training, research and public education. However, this foundation is now being abruptly dismantled. Following the sudden termination of federal Title VI funding in 2025, the US knowledge ecosystem has been pushed to the brink.