(A Short History of Asia series) Martin Stuart-Fox-A Short History of China and Southeast Asia_ Tribute, Trade and Influence-Allen & Unwin (2003)
The rise of China and how to accommodate this will be one of the
major international relations challenges of the twenty-first century.
Whether or not this can be achieved peacefully is of particular
importance for China’s neighbours, and none more so than for the
countries of Southeast Asia. Any attempt to foresee events is fraught
with uncertainty. All we can do is sketch possible alternative scenarios,
and suggest how these might play out given strategic interests,
culturally embedded values and historical precedent. Of course,
foreign policy decisions are made in response to contingent situations,
both external due to the actions of other powers and internal
in relation to the play of political forces. They are, in this sense, tactical.
But behind these tactical responses lie broad strategic goals
conceived in the context of the international relations and strategic
cultures of the states in question. Not all tactical decisions will
advance long-term strategic goals. But the two are connected,
nonetheless, especially in the case of China, given its determination
to regain great power status.
224
The China–Southeast Asia relationship is crucially important for
both sides. For the nations of Southeast Asia, relations with China
outweigh those with any other power, with the present exception of
the United States. Relations with Southeast Asia would appear to be
less significant for China, given Beijing’s global great power ambitions,
but in view of China’s present economic and military weakness, its
international standing will rest, to a large extent, on its regional influence.
For the geopolitical reality is that China’s influence beyond its
frontiers is limited by large powers in three directions: to the east by
Japan, to the north by Russia, and to the west by India. All historically
have resisted any form of Chinese political influence. Traditionally,
Chinese influence was greatest along the Silk Road into Central Asia
and in Southeast Asia. But any influence Beijing hopes to exert among
the Central Asian republics, formed from the breakup of the Soviet
Union, will face strong competition from both Russia and political
Islam. Moreover, Xinjiang hardly provides an ideal base from which to
project Chinese influence, any more than Tibet does for the South
Asian sub-continent.
The historic shift in economic importance from the Silk Road to
maritime trade took place from the Tang through the Song dynasties.
Thereafter Central Asia was usually more significant in terms of security
than trade. The arrival of the West both intensified this economic
shift, which today is overwhelming, and redirected the focus of China’s
security concerns. For now and into the future, the coastal provinces
of central and southern China are where the country’s economic
development is, and will be, focused, not Xinjiang. Even given competition
from the US and Japan, Southeast Asia offers far more
inviting opportunities for Chinese political and economic ambitions
than does Central Asia. The point I am making is simply that if China
seeks to project political power beyond its borders, Southeast Asia is
the prime target. For centuries the region has been seen by China as its
‘natural’ sphere of influence, and it still is, however unpalatable this
might be to regional powers.
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China: strategic goals and international
relations culture
China has learned much from its history, and the rest of the world
should too. Despite the pressures placed on China in the nineteenth
century, the PRC remains the last great empire, in that it rules over
subject non-Chinese peoples with ancient cultures of their own. In
some areas these subject peoples still constitute a majority (in Tibet
and Xinjiang); in others they are now a minority (Inner Mongolia and
Yunnan). As in the past, it is state policy to increase Han Chinese settlement
in all these nominally autonomous areas to ensure they remain
forever Chinese. China’s policy in the present-day context should be
seen for what it is: a continuation of the means traditionally used to
extend Chinese imperial rule through migration and administrative
controls. In this sense Chinese policy carries with it expansionist
implications.
The corollary to China’s historical expansionism is that China
has been remarkably reluctant to surrender any territory gained. Successive
Chinese dynasties tried to reconquer Vietnam, the only
formerly directly administered territory in Southeast Asia ‘lost’ to the
Chinese empire. Chinese of all political persuasions are quite unsympathetic
to Tibetan aspirations for independence, while the more
recent ‘loss’ of (Outer) Mongolia and the Russian Far East still rankles.
These two areas are probably now irretrievable, but two others are not:
Taiwan and the islands of the South China Sea.
This brings us to a second historical lesson that Chinese strategic
thinkers have taken very much to heart: the Chinese empire has been
strongest (and thus most strategically invulnerable) when it has been
united. A divided China, whether into competing empires (usually
north and south), or when riven by internal disunity (as during the
great rebellions of the mid-nineteenth century), was a weak China
that invited humiliation and dismemberment. The importance of
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maintaining the territorial and political unity of China is today
unquestioned by either communist or nationalist Chinese, despite
often strong pressures for regional autonomy. The balance between
central power and regional aspirations is something that has constantly
to be negotiated, but it is negotiated within the context of the survival
of the empire-state.
This historical lesson has a deep and emotional influence on the
formulation of China’s strategic goals and international relations
culture. For China, after the return of Hong Kong and Macau, still
remains divided: it is weaker than it would be if Taiwan, too, were to
return to the empire-state. The importance of Taiwan in China’s international
relations culture bulks so large not only for historical, but also
for strategic and political reasons, because of the quantum increase
reunification would provide to Chinese power. The return of Taiwan
would greatly benefit China’s ‘four modernisations’. A peaceful return
would also bring with it Taiwan’s considerable weapons stockpile.
Geostrategically the gains would be just as great, and of greater longterm
significance, for inclusion of Taiwan would advance Chinese
power hundreds of kilometers east into the Pacific between Japan and
Southeast Asia.
The return of Taiwan, by whatever means, would almost certainly
strengthen China’s determination to gain control of the islands of the
South China Sea, for it would reinforce their geostrategic significance.
Here the implications for Southeast Asia would be even more significant.
Should Beijing refuse to compromise on its claim to sovereignty
over the whole area and use its navy to seize the Spratlys, its reach into
Southeast Asia would be greatly extended (always provided the US did
not intervene). Vietnam would be outflanked and the island states
threatened. The strains placed on ASEAN would be immense, and
China’s relations with the region would be changed forever. Not surprisingly,
therefore, China’s Spratly claims are seen in the region both
as the latest example of Chinese expansionism, and as the litmus test of
China’s long-term intentions towards Southeast Asia.
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China’s intentions, of course, reflect its strategic goals. Two goals
closely linked to that of reunification are the preservation of national
security across all frontiers, and international status enhancement.
Traditionally, China adopted a dual policy to protect the Chinese
heartland combining the carrot of economic opportunity with the
stick of forward defence. Central Asian kingdoms were alternatively
bribed by gifts and access to trade under cover of the tribute system,
and subjected to punishing raids and military occupation. Southeast
Asian rulers were coopted into acting as ‘pacification commissioners’
to keep the peace along ill-defined frontiers. Mao’s defence policy
combined the protection of friendly (North Korea, North Vietnam)
or neutral (Burma, Laos) buffer states to keep imperialist powers at a
distance, combined with forward defence when necessary (as in
Korea). More recently, the PRC has adopted a defence strategy aimed
at maintaining China’s security through a combination of frontier
defence and limited force projection by smaller, more professional
armed forces. Though Beijing works hard to ensure a ring of friendly
powers along its frontiers through diplomatic overtures and economic
incentives, forward defence still remains an option. The Yongle emperor
reminded certain vassals of the fate of the Vietnamese emperor,
Ho Quy Ly, but Beijing hardly needs to remind the Lao or Burmese
of the ‘punishment’ meted out to Vietnam in 1979. As yet China
does not have the means to project military power into those countries
in Southeast Asia with which it does not share a common border, but
both air and naval forces are developing force projection capabilities.
In the future, therefore, China will have these means, if it wants to
use them.
A constant in China’s foreign policy, from the Qing to the PRC,
has been the determination to enhance the country’s international
standing in order to wipe out the shame of the ‘century of humiliation’,
and so restore China to its ‘rightful’ place in the world. The drive for
status enhancement, fuelled, in the words of one Chinese political
analyst, by a ‘strong sense of status discrepancy’, has motivated much of
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Chinese foreign policy. Sheng Lijun argues that Chinese perceptions
of status discrepancy have comprised four elements: between China’s
glorious past and less distinguished present; between China’s sense of
its own importance and the recognition accorded it by the world community;
between China’s desire to exercise political influence and its
limited means of doing so; and between China’s current power and
influence and how it believes these will be enhanced in the future.1
The Chinese believe they should stand at the apex of the status hierarchy
of peoples (and states) that they have always taken to be the
natural order of things. Status enhancement has been pursued, as we
have seen, in several ways: through military means to demonstrate that
China cannot be trifled with; through developing nuclear weapons;
through manipulating relations with powerful states; through claiming
leadership of one or another movement or group of nations (revolutionary
forces, Third World countries, and so on); and through steady
enhancement of Chinese power (political and economic, as well
as military). Reunification (the definitive inclusion of Taiwan and
the Spratlys in the empire-state) would powerfully contribute to
the same goal.
In summary, China’s strategic goals are to reunify the empirestate,
prevent its disintegration (as happened to the Soviet Union),
secure its frontiers, and enhance its international standing to the status
of an undisputed ‘great power’. Of course, status cannot simply be
claimed; it has to be recognised by others, and that recognition must
be expressed for the Chinese in appropriately deferential ways. Just as
superiors are treated deferentially by inferiors in personal relationships,
so, through the subtle rituals of diplomacy, can status be recognised
among states.
How China’s strategic goals are likely to impact on her relations
with Southeast Asia depends on the great power strategic balance, and
how this may change. The PRC, from its inception, encountered
a bipolar world in which it first leaned to the Soviet Union, then to
isolationism, then to the United States, and eventually tried to play a
F u t u r e d i r e c t i o n s
229
more independent role. The collapse of the Soviet Union, followed
by the decline of Russian power, has now left the United States as
the sole superpower. This is a situation that Beijing dislikes
intensely, both because it places China in a subordinate position,
and because the United States stands in the way of China’s
achievement of her strategic goals. What China would prefer is a
multipolar world in which power is shared by six roughly equal great
powers (the US, China, Europe, Russia, India, and Japan). Beijing
believes that this is the way the world is moving, and that American
power must inevitably decline in relative terms as that of other
major states, or groupings of states, grows. In this scenario, the US
might still remain primus inter pares, but it would no longer act as
global hegemon.
China seeks not to replace the US as the new world leader, for
this is not a practical possibility. What it does want is to be accepted
as one of a handful of great powers, none inferior to another, which
together would be responsible for shaping the world order. This is not
a vision the US shares, or wants to move towards. Not only is US military
power overwhelming, but, as it proved in the Gulf War and again
in Kosovo, Washington also has the political means to bring together
and lead a coalition of nations in support of its global strategy, thereby
sharing the cost and avoiding imperial overstretch.2 Added to this is the
fact that the American economy monopolises the new post-industrial
technology, and that the US acts as the global champion of democracy,
and the array of American power—military, political, economic and
ideological—is complete. Moreover, it is an array China cannot begin
to match. It will take time for the ‘four modernisations’ to have their
desired effect of increasing Chinese economic and military power. In
the meantime, China is left to rely on political influence. What China
now lacks, paradoxically, is any ideological claim to global leadership,
for the ‘restoration nationalism’3 that has largely replaced communism
as the driving inspiration behind Chinese foreign policy evokes no
appeal outside China.
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Not only the United States stands in the way of attainment of
China’s strategic goals: the country also faces enormous internal problems.
Its population is still increasing; so is environmental degradation;
and the pressure on land is becoming acute. A massive internal migration
is underway as rural peasants seek employment and better living
conditions in the cities of the eastern seaboard. Already these population
movements are being felt outside China as increasing numbers
of Chinese filter into northern Burma and Laos. Social turmoil in
China would threaten not only to destabilise the regime, but also to
spill over into Southeast Asia. This is one reason why few in Southeast
Asia are critical of authoritarian central government in China (which
gives a strategic twist to the Asian values debate).
China thus faces great obstacles in pursuing her strategic goals.
But these goals are unlikely to change, and the Chinese are as patient
as they are determined. The question is not, therefore, will China
actively pursue her strategic goals, but when and how.
Three scenarios
In a recent study of China’s ‘grand strategy’, Michael Swaine and
Ashley Tellis of the Rand Corporation argue that China is currently
pursuing what they term a ‘calculative strategy’.4 The key elements of
this strategy are to promote a market economy in an amicable international
environment in order to ensure rapid economic growth; to
avoid the use of force while modernising military capability; and
to expand China’s international political influence, including through
multilateral interaction. This is a pragmatic policy designed to lay the
foundations for a strong and modern China. As long as it lasts, China
is likely to be amenable in its international relations, both in its dealings
with major powers and with its Southeast Asian neighbours. Thus
China is ready to resolve relatively minor differences over land borders
(as it has with Vietnam), while postponing decisions on sea frontiers.
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In following this strategy, China remains determined to defend what it
perceives as its long-term national interests, in particular its ‘one
China’ policy in relation to Taiwan, and its sovereignty claim to the
Spratly islands, both of which it intends to resolve from a position of
greater strength.
What developments might derail the ‘calculative strategy’? One
would be internal political conflict in the event that the Chinese
Communist Party is unable to deal with the problems outlined above.
Another would be provocative Taiwanese moves towards independence.
A third would be a change in the international environment
that seriously undermined the ‘calculative strategy’, such as imposition
of severe trade restrictions or formation of a hostile coalition of powers
to contain China. But as Swaine and Tellis point out, the very success
of the ‘calculative strategy’ carries risks.5 Economic success may generate
trade disputes internationally, or challenges to the CCP internally
from a growing middle class; increasing military power, along with lack
of transparency, may push smaller nations to seek US protection; the
US itself may see China’s success as a threat to its own global hegemony;
or China may develop new strategic interests (such as control
of shipping lanes) that bring it into conflict with other states.
Crucial to future Chinese foreign policy will be the role of the
United States. In the post-Cold War world no power can challenge the
US. Europe is an ally; so is Japan. India is fixated on South Asia. Russia
is in temporary decline. In American eyes, only China looms as a likely
future rival. Even so, it is ironical that most of the ‘China as threat’
literature comes out of the world’s most powerful state. Strident voices
argue that the US should prevent China’s rise to power before it is too
late. More moderate opinion is accommodationist, seeking ways to
engage Beijing. Whatever the outcome of the American policy debate
on how to deal with China, however, Washington will need allies. The
American position is much stronger in Northeast Asia than in Southeast
Asia, despite treaties with the Philippines and Thailand.
American troops are stationed in Japan and South Korea, but nowhere
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in Southeast Asia. Yet if the US were to try to contain China, it would
need the support of at least some Southeast Asian states. During the
Second Indochina War, fought allegedly to prevent the southern
thrust of Chinese communism, Washington managed to obtain the
support of only two Southeast Asian states (Thailand and the Philippines).
Whether the US would be more successful in the face of a more
powerful and assertive China is a moot question.
If circumstances change, what might replace the present ‘calculative
strategy’?6 One possibility is that China might collapse into
internal chaos, and so be incapable of pursuing any coherent strategy.
For Southeast Asia, this unlikely scenario would be catastrophic. Not
only would Chinese foreign policy be unpredictable, but almost
certainly population movements would result that would dwarf earlier
Chinese migration to Southeast Asia. The tensions thus created in
Southeast Asia would be politically explosive and socially divisive.
A strong China that had overcome its internal problems might,
by contrast, move towards a cooperative strategy in which it would act
as a responsible global citizen playing a constructive role in international
forums to resolve outstanding conflicts, no longer primarily to
the benefit of China (the ‘calculative strategy’), but for the collective
benefit of the community of nations. This rather idealistic possibility
might evolve out of increased economic and multilateral political
interdependence. It would be most clearly demonstrated for the
nations of Southeast Asia if Beijing were to give way on its comprehensive
sovereignty claim and divide up the islands and waters of the
South China Sea.
A third scenario would be that China abandons the ‘calculative
strategy’ for a more assertive one, either because its ‘four modernisations’
have had their desired effect and the Chinese feel they can
act from a position of strength, or because Beijing is responding to
what it perceives as hostile actions that threaten its national interests
(see above). Essentially, a more assertive policy would see China
pursue its strategic goals urgently and single-mindedly with little
F u t u r e d i r e c t i o n s
233
consideration for the interests of other states. Unification and sovereignty
over all territory claimed as Chinese would be priorities, so once
again for Southeast Asia the South China Sea would be the key indicator.
This would seem to be the most likely scenario, if the ‘calculative
strategy’ is abandoned, so what would the implications be for Southeast
Asia?
To begin with, a more assertive Chinese posture towards Southeast
Asia would be designed to increase China’s influence in the
region. For fifty years Southeast Asia has been a primary target area for
Chinese foreign policy initiatives. In that time, Beijing has attempted
to forge an ‘axis’ with Indonesia, contained Vietnamese ambitions,
‘saved’ Cambodia from Vietnamese domination, and developed close
relations first with Burma, then Thailand, and more recently with
Malaysia. China has been less successful in winning the confidence of
post-Sukarno Indonesia or the Philippines. Relations with Vietnam
are correct, but hardly cordial, while suspicion of longer-term Chinese
intentions runs deep throughout the region.
Any considerable increase in Chinese influence in Southeast
Asia could only come, however, at the expense of the US and Japan.
In particular, it would require the United States to scale down its
military presence in the region. This is not impossible to imagine.
The reunification of Korea would obviate the need for a continuing
US military presence, either in Korea or Japan (though Japan, faced
with a competitive China and with few friends, might well opt to
maintain its security treaty with Washington). The US has already
withdrawn from continental Southeast Asia, and will not commit
troops there again. US bases in the Philippines have been dismantled,
and Indonesia, with pretensions to leadership of its own in
the region, has never been a subservient ally, even during the
Suharto era. If preceded by peaceful reunification with Taiwan, even
an aggressive Chinese seizure of the islands of the South China
Sea might not be opposed by a more isolationist US if the safety
of shipping lanes were to be guaranteed. This is not to suggest that
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the US would abandon its interests in Southeast Asia entirely, just
that the US, as a global power, might be prepared to make way for
China as regional hegemon in Southeast Asia, even while retaining a
more substantial presence in Northeast Asia. Southeast Asia, in other
words, cannot rely on American power indefinitely.
Given its geographical position and regional economic interests,
Japan might prove a more tenacious competitor, though it suffers
certain historical disadvantages. Japan has never been prepared meekly
to accept the Chinese world order. The competition that might have
developed from the seventeenth century for influence in Southeast
Asia was curtailed by Japanese isolationism. After the Meiji restoration
of 1867, pent up Japanese national energies were channelled into
rapid modernisation, the fruits of which were turned against China.
Japanese aggression from 1895 to 1945 sowed seeds of deep distrust and
resentment, not just in China, but throughout Southeast Asia. Fear of
the resurgence of Japanese militarism, and the ugly side of Japanese
nationalism, not to mention a lack of cultural affinity and Japanese
racial arrogance, present barriers to the extension of Japanese influence
in Southeast Asia. In view of these difficulties, Japan may well be
content to rest its power on its global economic interests rather than
attempt to compete politically with China in Southeast Asia. Even so,
Japanese investment in, and aid to the region would be likely to continue
as a welcome economic counterweight to China.
How might Southeast Asian nations respond to a more assertive
China? Any answer to this question must take account of the historical
and cultural context of Chinese–Southeast Asian relations. One
point to note is that as the history of the relationship has shown,
Southeast Asian kingdoms faced with the preponderance of Chinese
power never concluded alliances to ‘balance’ it. Balance-of-power
thinking that comes so naturally to Western international relations
analysts7 was never the way Southeast Asian kingdoms traditionally
dealt with China. Only in the last fifty years, as a result of Western
dominance in the region, have balance-of-power coalitions been
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235
constructed—and then Southeast Asian nations proved remarkably
reluctant to join. It is significant that the ASEAN states are today just
as opposed to any balance-of-power coalition that could be construed
as aimed at China.
As we have seen, the kingdoms of Southeast Asia dealt with
China on a bilateral basis through the tributary system. In so doing,
they forged bilateral relations regimes not on the basis of similar worldviews
(except for Vietnam), but through accommodation of the
Chinese world order, given key compatibilities and the moral obligations
to which both sides were committed. China demanded
recognition of both its status and its security interests (keeping peace
on its frontiers) in return for trading privileges and political legitimisation
(investiture). When Chinese armies marched into Southeast
Asia against powerful kingdoms like Vietnam and Burma, however,
whether to ‘punish’ or extend imperial frontiers, they encountered
concerted resistance. Once Chinese armies were defeated, the Vietnamese
and Burmese well understood that the only way to ensure their
future security was to re-establish the tributary bilateral relations
regime in recognition, if only symbolically, of China’s superiority. A
similar pattern of events marked the normalisation of Vietnamese relations
with China a decade after their border war of 1979, as both
Vietnamese and Chinese with their long historical memories were well
aware.
The states of mainland Southeast Asia are most unlikely to be
lured into a balance-of-power coalition orchestrated by Washington
to contain China, as they well know the US would be most reluctant
to commit troops to defend them. They must deal with China, therefore,
in their own way. That way varies from ready alliance with the
new regional hegemon in the case of Thailand, to the dour suspicion
and tough self-reliance of Vietnam, from the opportunist realism of
Burma to the weak dependency of Cambodia and Laos. The common
element in all mainland Southeast Asian bilateral relations regimes
with China, however, is that status recognition is the price of security.
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History indicates that China is unlikely to invade mainland Southeast
Asian countries that accord China de facto great power status, and
respect China’s security interests, as independent Burma consistently
has done. The obverse face of status recognition is Chinese obligation
to apply certain principles of international relations (non-intervention,
fair economic exchange, political support for ruling regimes). It was not
always thus during the revolutionary phase of China’s relations with
Southeast Asia. But that was, historically, something of an anomaly and
Beijing has become more conservative and predictable—which is to
say, more traditional—in its relations with its neighbours.
Maritime Southeast Asia (including the Malay peninsula) poses
a much greater barrier to the extension of Chinese influence, for the
historical bilateral relations regimes with China were much less
developed. Relations depended far more than for continental states
on the commercial activities of Malay merchants and Chinese
migrants who had no official standing in their country of origin. It is
interesting that in the map published in Beijing in 1954 in a history
of modern China, Sulu was the only island territory in maritime
Southeast Asia shown as formerly Chinese. None of the rest of the
Philippines, nor Indonesia, were so designated (though the Malay
peninsular was). Apparently the tributary relations of port principalities
on Java and other islands with the Qing dynasty counted as
qualitatively less binding, perhaps in the sense that they did not represent
substantial polities with historical continuity through to
modern independent states. The Chinese subsequently repudiated
this map, but it is significant nonetheless for the distinction it drew
between continental and maritime Southeast Asia.
Of all the countries of Southeast Asia, the one least likely to
accept Chinese hegemony is Indonesia. No bilateral relations regime
has historically linked Indonesia and China. The great inland kingdoms
of Java never really acknowledged Chinese suzerainty: tributary
missions to China were never more than for the purpose of trade.
China’s relations, as we have seen, were with various trading ports
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throughout the archipelago over which inland kingdoms such as
Mataram exercised, at best, limited control. Trade in the hands of both
Muslim and Chinese merchants took precedence over diplomacy in
shaping the relationship with successive Chinese dynasties. Thus
independent Indonesia could look back on no long historical
kingdom-to-empire bilateral relations regime of the kind developed
between China and Vietnam, or Thailand, or Burma. Even less could
the Philippines, whose significant trade relations with China (apart
from Sulu) post-date the arrival of the Spanish and were conducted
under their auspices.
The relationship between Indonesia and China has indeed been
‘troubled’,8 for several reasons. One is that nowhere else in Southeast
Asia has the problem of overseas Chinese proved so prickly. This is
because, for reasons of past policy and religious differences, nowhere
else (with the exception of Malaysia) has the Chinese community
been so poorly assimilated. Another reason is that Indonesia, despite
its continuing focus on internal security, has seen itself as the natural
leader in the region, and has been reluctant to allow room for China.
A third reason is that Indonesia sees itself as an Islamic state and, as
such, looks west to the great centres of the Islamic world more readily
than it looks north to China. No other Southeast Asian nation, apart
from the Philippines, has had its international relations culture less
shaped historically by the need to accommodate China. There has,
therefore, been correspondingly less historical basis on which to build
a mutually acceptable Indonesia–China bilateral relations regime.
Given these factors, it would be in China’s interests if Indonesia
split into smaller polities more easily dominated by the PRC. This was
the more prevalent pattern historically. Of course, China is not going
to encourage the break-up of Indonesia: it would just not be too concerned
if this happened. This is not the case for ASEAN, for which a
strong and unified Indonesia provides a much more substantial counterweight
to China than would a plethora of small states. Nor would it
be in the interests of the West.
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The Philippines also lacks a deep historical relationship with
China, though its Chinese community is better assimilated than in
Indonesia. Filipinos have looked east to America and west to Europe
more than north to China in constructing their international relations
culture. The Philippines is less sure of its position in Southeast
Asia than is Indonesia, more ready to take offence and respond in a
confrontational way to threatening situations, as the Mischief Reef
incident illustrated. The Philippines–China bilateral relations
regime remains, as a result of these factors, somewhat shallow and
undeveloped.
As for Malaysia and Singapore, both historically formed part of
the Malay trading world. Port cities on the Malay peninsula and
Borneo have a long tradition of economic and political relations with
China (Melaka, Brunei), but like Indonesia, these impinge little on
the modern Sino–Malaysian bilateral relations regime. The exceptionally
high proportion of Chinese in the population of Malaysia,
and the fact that Singapore is majority Chinese, has injected an
understandable ambiguity into their relations with China. Both claim
to enjoy close relations with the PRC, while being acutely aware of
possible adverse implications, either internally (Malaysia) or externally
(Singapore).
Both prior to falling under European colonial domination and as
independent states, the island nations of Southeast Asia have developed
very different bilateral relations regimes with China to those of
mainland Southeast Asian nations.9 This has been due to a combination
of geography and worldview (Muslim or Christian). The question
is, therefore, would the maritime states be more ready to oppose
Chinese regional hegemony? Would they, in the face of a more
assertive China, even join an American-led balance-of-power alliance
lying off the East Asian continent, comprising the US, Japan, Taiwan,
the Philippines, Indonesia and Australia? Here another factor enters
the equation: the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.
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