We can potentially vassalize Timor Leste, Myanmar and Kamboja if purely based on 'power' factor as soon as 2050. While Austronesian/ Maritime Southeast Asia has to be definitely inside our sphere of influence starting from the next decade.
We have to do this, otherwise other powers will snatch away any opportunity for us to influence foreign affairs and we will eventually find ourselves under 'diplomatic siege' from every direction or worse surrounded by enemy everywhere.
You made this assumption that once we do this everyone will just watch and let us do whatever we want. See Turkey as an example...its society and industry more technologically advanced, its military much more sophisticated than ours and unlike us they have a clear outward looking foreign policy (Mavi Vatan doctrine)...yet even then, they eventually forced to somewhat limit their geopolitical ambition in the face of a united UAE+Egypt+USA+ France opposition ranging from Syria, Libya to the Mediterannean.
Before we talk vassal this, vassal that...why not fix the very basic first ? Is our industry ready ? Is our military ready to back up ? Is our population ready ?
AsPac is on a magnitude much more important then the tiny hamlets and village of Syria or the sprawl of island in the Aegean, that means the opposing player here must be larger than the players Turkey faced right now in its south and southwest.
In Cambodia, the Viets will want to have its say, not mention the Chinese, Myanmar ? what is our privilege again ?
Other than the soft power we have in ASEAN we really don't have anything to offer.
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