Review: Deciphering China's Complex Southeast Asia Presence
Newly-released account sheds light on the multiple vectors of China's influence in Southeast Asia, its ripple effect and what to watch in its future evolution.
A newly-released account sheds light on the multiple vectors of China’s complex presence in Southeast Asia, its effects and what to watch in its future evolution.
WonkCount: 1,374 words (~7 minutes)
Review: Deciphering China's Complex Southeast Asia Presence
Context
"The Registrar has assessed that Chan has shown susceptibility to be influenced by foreign actors," read a statement released a few weeks ago by Singapore's home ministry on the first-ever designation under a new law amid concerns about China influence operations in the country1. The development was just one of several spotlighting the multiple vectors of China’s influence in Southeast Asia in the past few months. As we have been noting over here at ASEAN Wonk, this has included Xi Jinping’s Vietnam state visit after the U.S. double upgrade; Indonesia’s launch of Southeast Asia’s first China-backed high-speed railway; Malaysia’s China rhetoric and foreign policy; Sino-Philippine South China Sea tensions; economic inroads with U.S. treaty ally Thailand; and current anxieties around a planned China-funded Cambodia canal project (see graphic below for a timeline snapshot).
Select Developments Spotlighting China’s Influence in Southeast Asia
A new book titled The Ripple Effect: China’s Complex Presence in Southeast Asia by professor Enze Han provides useful insights for those analyzing the current and future trajectory of China’s influence in Southeast Asia, the Indo-Pacific and the wider world. The book analyzes various vectors of China’s influence in Southeast Asia. In doing so, it builds on aspects of other recent works on the subject, including the conceptual distinction between “power” and “influence” by scholar Evelyn Goh as well as the empirical cases from a new stream of books on aspects of China and Southeast Asia in recent years, including ones we’ve reviewed over at ASEAN Wonk in the past few months2. The nine main chapters in Ripple Effect run over 150 pages3.
Analysis
Ripple Effect granularly assesses the risks and opportunities in China’s regional influence in key countries and across major sectors. China’s presence in Southeast Asia can at times be viewed through lenses such as U.S.-China competition or individual Chinese government actions. But state-centric or geopolitical-focused accounts greatly understate Beijing’s regional presence in Southeast Asia and oversimplify the ways its influence is projected. Ripple Effect argues that China’s complex presence in Southeast Asia is better understood by emphasizing the role of Chinese non-state entities, local actors in Southeast Asian societies as well as intended and unintended effects of Beijing’s policies4. The book provides diverse examples to support this argument. These include warring China-Taiwan educational outreach programs in northern Thailand; shifting cotton laundering supply chains in Vietnam averting Xinjiang sanctions; the expansion of Chinese tech companies to Singapore; and the effects of identity securitization on Indonesia’s Chinese community5.
The book also charts out key areas of China’s influence and major vectors to watch in the coming years, which will be useful to governments, companies as well as researchers and watchers. The book delves into seven key areas, with notable cases as well as future indicators to watch (see table below for a snapshot of these important areas, and the rest of the Analysis section as well as the Implications section for insights into what to watch and prospects for the region and the world).
Major Vectors of China Influence in Southeast Asia to Watch and Notable Cases
