Asia Looks Seaward

China’s Southeast Asia Policy, Foreign Policy, and Use of Force

The extension of China’s territoriality another 1,000 nautical miles or

so south, together with the establishment of a permanent and strong naval

presence, would alter dramatically the balance of power in the region, color the

current right of international passage, and potentially pose a direct threat to

Vietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia, as well as a direct

economic threat to Japan and other states relying on free passage. Thus far

ASEAN has not been forced to deal with competing claims due to China’s overall

foreign policy toward the region, which has taken on a softer tone over the past

two decades.

Beijing’s overarching policy approach toward Southeast Asia has passed

through several phases.^15 During the Cold War, Beijing worked exclusively on

a bilateral basis. It was during this period that China’s policies created a signifi-

cant reservoir of distrust, largely through its rhetorical and actual support for

local communist and Chinese groups. Indonesia was both ASEAN’s leading state

and perhaps the strongest opponent of PRC influence in Southeast Asia. From

1978 to 1989, China aligned with Thailand, the United States, and most of

ASEAN to oppose the Vietnamese occupation of Cambodia and the Soviet

Union’s growing influence. As the Cambodian problem approached resolution

and the United States withdrew from the Philippines, ASEAN reconsidered its

relations with China, but its effort to repair relations foundered somewhat due

to Chinese assertiveness in the SCS.^16

Following Tiananmen, a policy of ‘‘good neighborliness’’ toward China’s

southern neighbors was initiated roughly at the same time that ASEAN began

to tackle, in a general way, security issues and the expansion of its membership.

In July 1991, Foreign Minister Qian Qichen attended the opening session of

the 24th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting as a guest of Malaysia, and throughout

the 1990s China circumspectly embraced an increasingly multilateral approach.

In one of the few studies specifically on China’s attitudes toward and uses of

multilateralism, Kuik Cheng-Chwee finds that for the rest of the decade, China’s

use of ASEAN institutions passed through three phases. In the first phase of pas-

sive involvement, up to 1995, China made a careful calculation that the trend

toward multilateralism was unstoppable and that it had to engage if it were to

have any control over the process. In the second phase of active participation

through 1999, while bilateral diplomacy remained the central feature, Beijing

took an active role in cochairing ASEAN Regional Forum meetings, became a

full dialogue partner of ASEAN, helped create the ASEAN-China Joint

Cooperation Committee, supported the expansion of the APT (ASEAN Plus

Three) process to banking and financial cooperation, and expanded its extra-

Southeast Asian multilateral initiatives to include the Shanghai Five (later the

Shanghai Cooperation Organization). Finally, since 2000, Beijing has been

176 Asia Looks Seaward