China And The Region

Abstract

Introduction China's relations with the countries of Southeast Asia are characterized by changeability, ambiguity and uncertainty. Much of this arises from the tensions inherent in China's modern identity. China is both a revolutionary and a modernising power. At times its leaders have stressed the one more than the other, but neither one has ever been totally absent. Just as it would have been wrong to neglect the impulse for economic development during the last 20 years of Mao's leadership, so it would be a grave error to discount the commitment to socialism inherent in the pursuit of modernization under the aegis of Deng Xiaoping. China is also a country with the longest tradition of statehood in the modern world. Its people, or more specifically, its leaders continually have to adapt to modern conditions in the light of China's diverse and rich historical legacy. Moreover, China is a regional power with global pretensions. By virtue of its size, location and great potential China is a great power in global terms and it is an important element in Soviet and American calculations of the operation of the balance of power between them. From a Chinese perspective the People's Republic of China has been under constant pressure from one or other of the two superpowers since its inception in 1949. As a result much of Chinese policies towards its neighbours including the Southeast Asian region have been determined by the perceptions of Chinese leaders of the character of the threats posed to China by the United States in the 1950s and 1960s and by the Soviet Union since then. In other words Chinese assessments of their regional friends and enemies have tended to be a consequence of Chinese calculations of the nature of the more important superpower threats to China and the place of the region within that calculus. As a result Chinese policies towards the region may change regardless of what may or may not happen within the region. Thus China's hostility to ASEAN voiced as late as 1969 changed to a more sympathetic approach by 1971 because of changes in China's relations with the Soviet Union and the United States. Disconcerting as this may be to China's Southeast Asian neighbours, further ambiguities arise because of the specific character of China's relationship with the region. Although China cannot be considered a Southeast Asian country, it is not entirely external to it. In terms of physical geography, China borders on the region sharing common borders with Vietnam, Laos and Burma. By its claims to sovereignty over island groups in the South China Sea, China reaches out very close to the maritime countries of the region. The claims and counter claims involving Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan and potentially Malaysia, Indonesia and possibly Brunei (the latter, over maritime exclusive economic zones, the division of the sea-bed ? not to mention a possible Chinese attempt to extend the archipelagic principle to those islands) all combine to give China a strong regional Southeast Asian dimension. Yet, at the same time, China is a huge continental country located on the Western Pacific with borders that also extend to south and central Asia, the Soviet Union and Mongolia in the north and to northeast Asia (including not only North Korea, but as far as maritime resources are concerned also South Korea and Japan).