History indicates that China is unlikely to invade mainland Southeast
Asian countries that accord China de facto great power status, and
respect China’s security interests, as independent Burma consistently
has done. The obverse face of status recognition is Chinese obligation
to apply certain principles of international relations (non-intervention,
fair economic exchange, political support for ruling regimes). It was not
always thus during the revolutionary phase of China’s relations with
Southeast Asia. But that was, historically, something of an anomaly and
Beijing has become more conservative and predictable—which is to
say, more traditional—in its relations with its neighbours.
Maritime Southeast Asia (including the Malay peninsula) poses
a much greater barrier to the extension of Chinese influence, for the
historical bilateral relations regimes with China were much less
developed. Relations depended far more than for continental states
on the commercial activities of Malay merchants and Chinese
migrants who had no official standing in their country of origin. It is
interesting that in the map published in Beijing in 1954 in a history
of modern China, Sulu was the only island territory in maritime
Southeast Asia shown as formerly Chinese. None of the rest of the
Philippines, nor Indonesia, were so designated (though the Malay
peninsular was). Apparently the tributary relations of port principali-
ties on Java and other islands with the Qing dynasty counted as
qualitatively less binding, perhaps in the sense that they did not rep-
resent substantial polities with historical continuity through to
modern independent states. The Chinese subsequently repudiated
this map, but it is significant nonetheless for the distinction it drew
between continental and maritime Southeast Asia.
Of all the countries of Southeast Asia, the one least likely to
accept Chinese hegemony is Indonesia. No bilateral relations regime
has historically linked Indonesia and China. The great inland king-
doms of Java never really acknowledged Chinese suzerainty: tributary
missions to China were never more than for the purpose of trade.
China’s relations, as we have seen, were with various trading ports
Future directions