From ASEAN six to ASEAN ten
The burgeoning economic relationship between China and the
wealthier Southeast Asian nations, with its dual components of
increased trade and investment, may come to be seen as the most signi-
ficant development of the 1990s, but the decade also saw a substantial
increase in Chinese political influence in the region. Diplomatic rel-
ations were restored between China and Indonesia in 1990, followed
immediately by Singapore’s recognition of the PRC. Brunei was the
last ASEAN state to establish relations with Beijing in the following
year. It was in Burma, however, that Chinese political influence was
most evident, with all that that implied for China’s strategic relation-
ship with the region.
As noted above, the strictly neutral, isolationist military regime
in Burma successfully weathered the disruptions to relations with
China resulting from the Cultural Revolution. Over the period from
1970 to 1985, China was particularly pleased by the way Burma kept
both superpowers at bay, to the point in 1979 of withdrawing from the
non-aligned movement when it began to tilt towards the Soviet
Union, and by Burma’s deferential consideration for China’s national
interests. From the Burmese point of view, this was sensible insurance
against the ever-present threat of increased Chinese support for the
Burmese Communist Party (BCP). With the return to power of Deng
Xiaoping, even rhetorical Chinese support for the BCP decreased. In
April 1989 an uprising by ethnic Wa cadres effectively destroyed the
BCP, which accompanied the Thai and Malayan communist parties
into oblivion.
In the late 1980s, two events conspired to bring China and
Burma even closer together. These were the bloody seizure of power by
the Burmese military in September 1988, followed by suppression of
student demonstrators in Beijing the following year. Both were brutal
attacks on popular movements calling for greater democracy; both
A Short History of China and Southeast Asia