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Showing posts with the label China-ASEAN ties

China's Bogus South China Sea 'Consensus' ( Source- The National Interest / Authors- Bhubhindar Singh, Shawn Ho, Henrick Z. Tsjeng)

Chinese trawlers in South China Sea ( Image credits- VOA) Source- The National Interest Authors-  Bhubhindar Singh , Shawn Ho,   Henrick Z. Tsjeng The recently concluded 15th Shangri-la Dialogue in Singapore once again focused on the South China Sea disputes. At the Dialogue, Admiral Sun Jianguo, Deputy Chief of the Joint Staff Department of China’s Central Military Commission, rebutted criticisms of China’s actions in the South China Sea and reiterated China’s legal right to ignore an upcoming judgement in a case filed by the Philippines at the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. As many governments and analysts view ASEAN’s reaction to this upcoming judgement as a gauge of its unity, it is timely to evaluate if Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s announcement of a four point “consensus” reached with Brunei, Cambodia and Laos in late April this year – which contained supposed agreements between the four countries on approaches to manage the South China Sea d

China’s Charm Offensive Continues to Sputter in Southeast Asia ( Source- The Diplomat / Author- Joshua Kurlantzick)

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / VOA Source- The Diplomat Author-  Joshua Kurlantzick After a decade, in the 2000s, in which China aggressively pursued warmer relations with many Southeast Asian nations, using a combination of diplomacy, aid, and soft power to woo its neighbors, the past five years have seen a significant chill in China-Southeast Asia relations. First, Beijing’s more aggressive pursuit of its claims in the South China Sea led to heightened tensions between China and other claimants—most notably Vietnam and the Philippines, but also increasingly Indonesia, where the armed forces are trying to rapidly modernize Jakarta’s naval capacity in part out of fear of China’s actions in the South China Sea. However, even as China alienated countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, it had until recently maintained relatively warm relations with several of the other leading Southeast Asian states, including Thailand, Myanmar, and Malaysia. These countries were

This Is How China is Winning the South China Sea Showdown ( Source- The National Interest/ Lowy Interpreter, Author- Elliot Brennan)

Chinese destroyer ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons) Source- The National Interest Author- Elliot Brennan At the opening day of the ASEAN Foreign Ministerial Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, current ASEAN chair Malaysia set the tone by placing the South China Sea disputes firmly on the agenda. “Let this be the day we say we do more,” Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman said in his opening address. Australia, as well as several other key ASEAN partner countries, is present at the talks. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has expressed Canberra's desire for ASEAN to do more, and Bishop said she would 'register' her country’s concerns over the disputes at the meeting.  Australia has of late been more vocal in calling for a resolution of disputes in the South China Sea, through which the majority of its trade is shipped. At the Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore earlier this year, Defense Minister Kevin Andrews spoke of the need for freedom of navigation in the dispu

Why ASEAN Can't Stand Up to China ( Source- The National Interest / Author- Amanda Conklin)

Image credits- Internet image Source- The National Interest Author- Amanda Conklin China’s negotiations with ASEAN on a Code of Conduct for the South China Sea are dragging into their thirteenth year. At the same time, China has undertaken a massive land reclamation campaign to change the status quo in the South China Sea, leaving critics to lament ASEAN’s inability to form a united policy toward China. Ambiguity about China’s rise is a “black sheep” in the integration of Southeast Asia. Although ASEAN plans to achieve the economic pillar of building a regional community by the end of 2015, integration on the political-security pillar has been slow, partly due to the ASEAN principles of non-interference and non-confrontational bargaining that slow consensus building. ASEAN’s continuation of the same policies towards China since the 1990s has been unsuccessful in keeping China from pushing the region toward instability and threatening ASEAN’s integration. For example,

China's Mad Dash for the South China Sea ( Source- The National Interest / Author- Richard Javad Heydarian)

Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / Author- United States Navy Source- The National Interest Author- Richard Javad Heydarian No more hiding its claws, no more biding its time, China has unquestionably entered a new era of assertiveness, casting aside Deng Xiaoping’s decades-long call for moderation, humility, and calculation in foreign policy. China is slowly but surely moving from consolidating its claims on features it has been occupying for decades to dominating the entire South China Sea, gradually achieving the capability to fully drive out Southeast Asian claimant states from other features under their control. Quite naturally, a sense of panic has gripped neighboring countries such as the Philippines, which have been locked in a bitter and seemingly hopeless maritime spat with their giant neighbor. We are no longer just talking about hypotheticals here; China is unabashedly operationalizing its sweeping claims across adjacent waters. Far from resorting to its fr

Is China’s Economic Power in ASEAN Overblown? ( Source- The Diplomat / Author- Prashanth Parameswaran)

Image credits- Xinhua Source- The Diplomat Author- Prashanth Parameswaran While a lot has been written about China’s growing economic influence in Southeast Asia, the analysis is often based on a survey of certain ambitious initiatives that have yet to play out – like the Maritime Silk Road – or flowery statements and declarations by leaders rather than measuring its actual impact using hard data. I’ve pointed out the folly of this before, most recently in an article on Sino-Indonesian relations for The Diplomat. A recent report released by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission attempts to actually measure China’s economic ties with the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) using trade and investment data. The report’s findings suggest that China is actually much less of a juggernaut than it is often portrayed to be in Southeast Asia, and that there are still lingering problems with Beijing’s economic relationships in the