Continental Southeast Asia as a strategic space: Geography, history, and enduring constraints

This seminar examines continental Southeast Asia as a strategic space structured by two distinct but interacting sets of constraints. By continental Southeast Asia, I do not mean simply the fixed set of CLMVT mainland Southeast Asian countries. Rather, it describes a historically constituted strategic space centred on the mainland river basins of the Irrawaddy, Chao Phraya, Mekong, and Red River systems, but extending into adjoining upland and frontier zones—including areas such as Yunnan—all functionally integrated through trade routes, military corridors, political networks, and systems of rule.

Within this space, political actors have historically operated under conditions of persistent geographic exposure to neighbouring polities, alongside modes of political legitimation that limit how authority can be asserted and sustained. Together, these dynamics generate enduring constraints for both regional actors and external powers seeking to project influence into the region.

The seminar argues that political outcomes in continental Southeast Asia are best understood not as the product of successful domination or failed state-building, but as effects of the strategic environment itself—an enduring configuration of geography and historically embedded modes of authority that define what is operationally and politically possible over time.

Speaker

Tommy Chai is a PhD Candidate at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, the Australian National University. He aspires to be a regional expert and is interested in understanding how regional history shapes strategy, security, and order in Southeast Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific.

Image - Topographic map of Southeast Asia. Map data copyrighted OpenStreetMap contributors and available from https://www.openstreetmap.org.

The ANU Southeast Asia Institute Research Seminar Series is a recurring seminar series that showcases the work of scholars working on political, social, and cultural issues in Southeast Asia.

Contact the ANU Southeast Asia Institute Research Seminar Series Conveners: Nicholas Chan at waiyeap.chan@anu.edu.au.

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