The Diplomatic Emergence of China and Its Implications for Southeast Asia

Abstract

China's startling and still recent emergence from isolation into world diplomacy has left other countries rather breathless. There seems to be a high degree of co incidence between several developments that have contributed to this unexpected change in policy. Firstly, there was the ending of the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution in China itself, and a return to greater normality in internal and external policies. Secondly, there was the strenuous attempt of the Nixon Administration to end American involvement in Vietnam and place U.S. policy in Asia, including China, on a new footing. Thirdly, there was the inevitable but much delayed admission of China to the United Nations in September 1971, where she took her place as a permanent member of the Security Council. These three developments, occurring in rapid succession, undoubtedly heightened the impact of the arrival of China on the world stage. In the subsequent period, other countries have been engaged in readjusting, in their several ways, to the new circumstances. By far the most important of these developments, in terms of its implications for the future shape of international relations and the strategic balance in Southeast Asia, has been the rapprochement between Peking and Washington. This factor alone has contributed immensely to the new and alarming (or exciting, depending on the point of view) fluidity in Southeast Asian affairs today. The old guidelines and the old alliances are rapidly being replaced by as yet largely untried experiments in regional diplomacy. New assessments are still being made of what really constitutes the national interest, based on new analyses of Chinese and American intentions in the area. China's role in the United Nations and her own internal stability are still relevant factors to be taken into consideration, but when it comes to a realistic political appraisal, these things pale beside the American withdrawal from the Asian mainland and the consequent looming of China's economic and military potential. No longer is the dividing line simply between two opponents, communist and non-communist. There is the now familiar element of Sino-Soviet rivalry, and the chrysalis of Japanese power, to be used in a way that may not continue to be confined simply to the economic sphere. It is in this quadrilateral situation that the countries of Southeast Asia now have to find their way. Their response has been twofold. First, they have sought to find each other in a regional embrace; and second, they have scanned the signposts pointing to a new approach to China, some by one route, some by another. A feature of ASEAN, and one reason for its present vitality, is the confidence it has engendered in its members through the practice of pooling information over a wide field, of co-ordinating policies that have moved beyond the economic to the political, and of confiding bilateral ini tiatives where these occur (as in the case of China). Here is a regional grouping that is not too constricted by a common approach, but which can heal divisions