By Joshua Kurlantzick
There has been a significant chilling of China’s relations with Southeast Asia.
After a decade, in the 2000s, in which China aggressively pursued warmer relations with many Southeast Asian nations, using a combination of diplomacy, aid, and soft power to woo its neighbors, the past five years have seen a significant chill in China-Southeast Asia relations. First, Beijing’s more aggressive pursuit of its claims in the South China Sea led to heightened tensions between China and other claimants—most notably Vietnam and the Philippines, but also increasingly Indonesia, where the armed forces are trying to rapidly modernize Jakarta’s naval capacity in part out of fear of China’s actions in the South China Sea.
However, even as China alienated countries like Vietnam and the Philippines, it had until recently maintained relatively warm relations with several of the other leading Southeast Asian states, including Thailand, Myanmar, and Malaysia. These countries were either not involved in the South China Sea dispute or, like Malaysia, they had less at stake in the dispute than the Philippines or Vietnam. Thailand and Malaysia also historically have maintained close links to China for decades. In Myanmar, China’s investment and aid had become so important that, even as Naypyidaw attempted to boost relations with leading democracies, Myanmar leaders rarely offered public criticism of Beijing. After the May 2014 coup, Thailand’s military leaders apparently came to see the kingdom’s relationship with Beijing as even more important than in the past. Unlike democracies that withheld aid or publicly criticized the Thai junta, Chinese officials offered rhetorical support for the junta government and continued several high-profile joint infrastructure projects.
Read the full story at The Diplomat