Page 1 of 2 China's embrace leaves US in cold
By Fu-kuo Liu
China is leading a new wave of regional cooperation in Southeast Asia, and
China-driven mechanisms for regional cooperation look set to overwhelm all
possible areas of economic and political cooperation.
For economic, security, diplomatic and military reasons, China has been
developing stronger relationships with member countries of the Association for
Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). The Beijing charm offensive has become an
integral part of its overall strategy to shape a new regional structure that is
more conducive
to strategic interests.
A new Asian regionalism stimulated by the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement
(CAFTA) will dominate the future economic landscape of Asia, in which the
United States may not have a substantial role to play. ASEAN members are
Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines,
Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
CAFTA takes effect for China and six ASEAN countries in 2010 and will be
expanded to all ASEAN countries by 2015. China is now laying the bricks of
CAFTA's foundations by developing economic corridors in the Greater Mekong
Subregion (GMS). This effort will involve water transport along the Upper
Lancang/Mekong River covering China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam; and
rail and road links that will stretch from China's Yunnan province to Chiang
Rai in Thailand and so eventually link with Singapore [1].
At the third GMS summit on March 31 in Vientiane, Laos, leaders from Cambodia,
China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam agreed to endorse the Vientiane
Plan of Action for GMS Development for 2008-2012, which emphasizes the
significance of pushing substantial and early progress on transport and energy
in the subregion.
Since the second GMS summit held at Kunming in 2005, China has provided
training and various development projects to GMS members and is taking a
leading role in developing the GMS Information Superhighway Network [2].
Since January 2006, China has unilaterally opened 83 trading items to zero
tariffs for Cambodia, 91 for Laos, and 87 for Burma. China’s continued effort
to promote GMS cooperation and play an active role in coordination mechanisms
is based on a strategic calculation that emphasizes deepening economic
cooperation in the subregion.
Since GMS economic cooperation is a China-ASEAN-Asian Development Bank (ADB)
joint effort, China’s serious commitment to sub-regional cooperation also
reflects the main thrust of its "good neighbor" diplomacy. Based on a
comprehensive security strategy that aims to facilitate regional stability
through cohesion, China’s real intention with China-ASEAN cooperation can be
found in its keen effort in pushing GMS integration.
Many analysts believe that as China builds more institutional frameworks for
regional economic cooperation, these institutions will accelerate further
economic and political interdependence between China and ASEAN countries.
For ASEAN, the immediate effect of the Asian financial crisis in 1997 was a
strong desire to accelerate intra-regional cooperation. China’s firmness
against market pressure of depreciating the yuan was widely seen as having
saved China’s neighbors from the brink of failure, because depreciation would
have further weakened their export competitiveness and had a devastating impact
on their economies.
Regional countries would not forget how, in a time of crisis, Western countries
imposed harsh requests for domestic reforms and left a negative impression of
their conditional assistance to the region and its people. In a broader
strategic sense, the growing sophistication of China's foreign policy in the
region can be attributed to Beijing capitalizing on this disconnect and
emphasizing the country's geographic and historical proximity to the region.
This helps it underscore that its aims are unlike those of Western countries,
which is to facilitate better relationships with its close neighbors, and
consequently create a favorable environment that could be cultivated in China's
favor.
Regional integration in East Asia is largely considered driven by the momentum
of China's economic rise. It is obvious that the progress of regional
integration is very much in line with the pace of China's economic advancement
in the region. Economic powers in the region have reacted to China's successful
advance. For instance, Japan's comprehensive economic partnership initiative in
January 2002 is considered a prompt response to China’s free trade agreement
(FTA) initiative with ASEAN. India is also accelerating its pace of negotiating
FTAs with ASEAN countries.
Dynamic initiatives
The establishment of CAFTA augurs comprehensive cooperation between China and
ASEAN countries. It is quite conceivable that once the proposal is initiated,
all existing cross-border interactions will become institutionalized under the
strategic framework. For this, China has made tremendous efforts in trying to
settle its common border disputes. Two additional sub-regional economic
initiatives were proposed to deepen cooperation between China and Southeast
Asian countries. Those new initiatives came from both national and provincial
government levels in China.
Based on the ideas of reinforcing sub-regional cooperation, in 2004 Chinese
Premier Wen Jiabao and Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai reached a
consensus on the new initiative "two corridors and one ring", where areas
stretching from Kunming (Yunnan province of China) via Lao Cai to Hanoi, Hai
Phong, and Quang Ninh (Vietnam), and from Nanning (Guanxi Zhuang Autonomous
Region, GZAR) via Lang So to Hanoi, Hai Phong, and Quang Ninh as two corridors,
and along the Beibu Gulf Rim as one ring.
This initiative of economic cooperation, which focuses on developing three
different levels of industrial division of labors - first, the Pearl River
Delta, electronics, telecommunications, and services; second, Yunan and Guanxi,
labor and capital-intensive industries; third, Vietnam, consumer market -
linking China's southern provinces of Yunan and Guanxi with Vietnam [3].
In July 2006, on the occasion of the 1st Pan Beibu Gulf Economic Cooperation
Forum, the Guangxi government proposed a China-ASEAN M-shape regional economic
strategy, which would work on:
1. Extending sea links with Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, and the
Philippines.
2. Constructing a Nanning-Singapore economic corridor through highway and
railway projects linking Nanning, Hanoi, Phnom Penh, Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, and
Singapore.
3. Deepening GMS cooperation among all member states and enhancing
communication and cooperation between China's southern provinces and Southeast
Asian countries.
To take advantage of its geographic location as China's gateway to Southeast
Asia, Guanxi has been advocating the combination of maritime economic
cooperation, mainland economic cooperation, and Mekong sub-region cooperation.
With this ambitious economic strategy in place, Guanxi is moving one step
further to try to institutionalize an economic cooperation framework with ASEAN
neighbors.
On the strategic level, it will be critical for China's relationship with
ASEAN, as the initiative attempts to develop sea links among all countries
surrounding the South China Sea, including Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore,
Indonesia, Brunei, and the Philippines, and rail links that will connect
Singapore with Kunming.
In the same vein, since 1992, the GMS Program, sponsored by the ADB, has
provided various development projects along Lancang River on the China side and
the Mekong River along Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. The GMS works
Head
Office: Unit B, 16/F, Li Dong Building, No. 9 Li Yuen Street East,
Central, Hong Kong Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
