CHAPTER 9
CHINA–SOUTHEASTASIA RELATIONS:
PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS
John Garofano
With its expanding political influence; its increasingly sophisticated nuclear,
space, and power-projection capabilities; and an economy poised to overtake
those of the United States and European Union in terms of raw purchasing
power, the PRC (People’s Republic of China) is about to move into a new
category of statehood falling somewhere between superpower and mere
great-power status. The implications are global, but they will be felt acutely
by China’s immediate neighbors. The United States, which has long considered
itself both a resident Asian power and a force for stability in the region, thus will
face a ‘‘near peer competitor.’’ Long-standing U.S. allies Japan and the ROK
(Republic of Korea) will confront new dilemmas, with Japan having to choose
how to make the transition to the status of a ‘‘normal’’ power without sparking a
new round of open-ended competition and the ROK considering the effects of
any possible resolution of its cross-border issues on future relations with the giant
to the north.
Less obvious, and occasioning far lessdiscussion, are the implications of
China’s rise for security in Southeast Asia. The subregion does not bristle with
thesamestoresofconventionalarmaments that characterize Northeast Asia,
and most of the actors there have sworn off nuclear weapons. Key states are not
as wealthy as those of Northeast Asia, and they have not yet focused their energies
on the foreign and security policy problems of Northeast Asia. Nor do they have
the degree of historical animosity and related baggage toward a rising China that
is evidenced in Japan’s relations with its neighbors.
Yet in no small part because Southeast Asian states have been focused on
domestic economic and social conditions, the rise of China poses a unique set of
problems which regional actors may be ill-equipped to manage. While a debate