Review: Where is China Soft Power in Southeast Asia Headed?
New book forecasts future trajectory of China's regional soft power capabilities, beyond US void-filling hype, Confucius Institutes and the overseas Chinese.
A new book forecasts future trajectory of China's regional soft power capabilities, beyond hype on US void-filling, Confucius Institutes and overseas Chinese populations.
WonkCount: 1,669 words (~8 minutes)
Review: Where is China Soft Power in Southeast Asia Headed?
Context
“We are happy to resume our mission to save lives,” the unit chief of Cambodia’s demining agency recently said when unveiling a conditional waiver for a U.S. assistance freeze in a realm that has periodically spotlighted an aspect of U.S. Vietnam War-era presence in mainland Southeast Asia1. The datapoint was one among many amid recent speculation about whether China may capitalize on a perceived “soft power void” left by the U.S. assistance freeze and policy uncertainty2. This is despite the fact that the void-filling prism can belie Beijing’s own limitations and variations in development assistance (to take just one example, roughly 85 percent of China’s development assistance is issued as debt vs. aid by one count, which is almost the inverse from the traditional U.S. distribution prior to the freeze)3.
A new book Rising China’s Soft Power in Southeast Asia edited by scholar Leo Suryadinata transcends the void-filling frame to granularly examine China’s own soft power efforts in Southeast Asia4. In doing so, it adds to a decades-long conversation about the evolving calibration of hard and soft power in China’s approach to Southeast Asia and the world, following from the initial “soft power” term popularized by scholar and former official Joseph Nye5. To take one datapoint on how that conversation has evolved, as we noted in a recent ASEAN Wonk book review, Joshua Kurlantzick, who wrote an early examination of China’s soft power in his book Charm Offensive back in 2007, has since drawn attention to Beijing’s increasing use of so-called “sharp power” in his book Beijing’s Global Media Offensive6. A series of recent books on China’s ties with Southeast Asia, including ones we have reviewed here, have also attempted to address how Beijing utilizes its capabilities in the region7.
Select Key Recent Developments in China-Southeast Asia Relations
Analysis
The book provides a rare collection of granular perspectives on China’s soft power across individual Southeast Asian states. Rising China’s Soft Power in Southeast Asia assesses how China is projecting its influence through a range of instruments in the region, with cases covering eight of the eleven countries in Southeast Asia8. Moving beyond narrower prisms that focus primarily on select aspects such as overseas Chinese, the book draws on original surveys and interviews which demonstrate the richer regional realities and variations of interest to close regional watchers across spheres including culture, politics and economics. These include the division between so-called pro-Taiwan and pro-China schools in Yunnanese Chinese communities in northern Thailand as well as the customized labeling applied to Confucius Institutes in Indonesia seen as partly designed to navigate past historical sensitivities9. “Various chapters in this book show that the rising China’s soft power in Southeast Asia has grown quite significantly,” Suryadinata notes before the book transitions to its granular country assessments10.
Rising China’s Soft Power in Southeast Asia also forecasts the outlook for China’s regional presence in key areas that are important to watch and will be of interest to scholars, policymakers and businesses alike (see table below for a summary of these priority areas, along with major datapoints to watch and notable details. Paying subscribers can also read the rest of the “Analysis” section and “Implications” section looking at how these dynamics play out in the future).
Notable Datapoints to Watch in the Future of China’s Soft Power in Southeast Asia, Along With Select Key Dynamics and Major Countries
