Hunter Marston, ‘US–China Blame Game Grates on Southeast Asia’, East Asia Forum, 22 July 2020.

2020 has been an extremely difficult year for Southeast Asia. Multiple countries are expecting an economic contraction as tourism and intraregional trade grind to a halt in the wake of COVID-19. China has donated enormous quantities of personal protective equipment (PPE) and testing equipment to the region, while the United States has directed roughly US$80 million in pandemic assistance to Southeast Asian countries. But rather than forging a global response to the pandemic, the two superpowers have resorted to blaming one another in an information war.