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This paper attempts to examine the process of China's participation in regional cooperation in Asia and the factors that affect its participation. It focuses on a changing China-ASEAN relationship that is reshaping Asia. To build a peaceful and stable external environment, China has been making various efforts, political, economic and in the security field, to maintain and upgrade a harmonious and constructive relationship with its neighboring East Asian countries. Politically, China acceded to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC), essentially accepting the code of conduct stipulated by ASEAN and prompting other regional countries to observe this code. China has been supportive of ASEAN, playing a leadership role in East Asian regional cooperation. China and Asian regional cooperation is an evolving concept and a couple of theoretical points may be taken into account, such as how regional cooperation influences major powers' international behavior and vice versa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the fluidity that permeates the contemporary international community is driven by especially political and economic globalisation, which has a huge impact on the relationship between the nation and the state. As the individual nation state is increasingly dependent on the international community for its economic survival this dependency on the global has as a consequence that it rolls back aspects of national sovereignty thus opening up the national hinterland for further international influences. These developments initiate a process of disaggregating state and nation, meaning that a gradual disarticulation of the relationship between state and nation produces new societal spaces, which are contested by non-statist interest groups and transnational more or less deterritorialised ethnic affiliated groups and networks. The argument forwarded in this article is that Southeast Asians of Chinese descent utilise these newly created spaces for setting up diasporic-like networks thus providing substance for transnational ethnoscapes or nations without states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that Sino–ASEAN relations, despite reassurances and determination by both sides to increase interactions and cooperation, have some remaining areas of contention and contestation. After its long isolation, self-imposed or otherwise, the PRC has been able to integrate itself successfully into the political life, economies, and security interests of the region. The PRC's market potentials, military capabilities and its enormous size have both excited and threatened the Southeast Asian states. While the Southeast Asian states have been willing to engage this emerging regional power, they are also wary of the potential risks when dealing with it. Increasing trade, investment, and cultural levels between the two regions have made both sides increasingly aware of the opportunities and challenges involved. The relationship is not without problems, although there is a general consensus that it is on a much better footing than in recent decades. The present developments of their relationships and in the next decade are analyzed under three categories: rituals, risks and rivalries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is raging speculation about the potential implications of China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR)/Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) for the global order, spheres of influence and the positions of extra-regional powers. Much commentary is overly broad and lacks a clear and systematic method for examining OBOR/BRI’s future consequences. Focusing on the Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI), a major OBOR/BRI component, in the Southeast Asian context, this article shows China’s own situation and Southeast Asian international and domestic economic and political variables will hinder the complete implementation of the MSRI. Even if the MSRI is fully realized, various factors will limit the political impact of the MSRI’s economic attractions. In short, the MSRI is more likely to yield a Chinese pond than a Chinese lake. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As China expands its development assistance in Southeast Asia, is Chinese aid beginning to emulate international norms and practices or sustaining its own distinct approach to development assistance? This essay argues that China's socialization into international norms varies with the thickness of the institutional environment. In Laos and Cambodia, China's enhanced collaboration with international consortia, improved transparency, and project diversity point to nascent socialization. China's aid to Myanmar, however, remains opaque and largely self-interested. At the regional level, Beijing is bolstering its influence over the norms and practices of regional developmental institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

External threat plays a diminishing role in the foreign policies of China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Some version of modernization diplomacy is pursued so that economic interests are accorded priority. It is in this context that they have gradually adopted comprehensive security and similar concepts. At the individual level, aspirations and security are also realized in the context of satisfactory economic development. At the international level, regional economic co-operation associated with market liberalization is perceived as an important means to maintain a peaceful external environment and to promote economic growth. The concept of security is thus both broadened and extended to link up the international, regime and individual levels. The Asian financial crisis exposed the contradictions between the developed countries of the West and the developing economies in the Asia–Pacific region; it also challenged the dominant domestic political coalitions in Southeast Asia based on existing development strategies. New alignments therefore have to be established within the Asia–Pacific region to ensure effective interest articulation within the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework, and the shaking of the foundation of the regional regimes produced varied responses ranging from defensive adjustment to offensive adjustment and fundamental economic restructuring. Values and aspirations on the part of individuals have to be redefined too. The threat of terrorism was first highlighted by the September 11 Incident, but terrorism in the region was largely rooted in domestic ethnic and socio-economic contradictions and exacerbated by economic difficulties in the wake of the Asian financial crisis. The threat of terrorism has in turn alerted the regional governments to the issues of radical Islam, the widening gap between the rich and poor and inter-ethnic relations, as well as to a whole range of non-traditional security issues. In short, comprehensive security must include good governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along the contemporary migration history of the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, three distinctive images have been constructed through the interaction between the overseas Chinese and Mainland China. First, the image of involuntary migrant, formulated by their migration activity and the continuous remittance they sent back to their hometowns, closely linked to the political and social-economic disturbances in the early years of the twentieth century. Second, the image of the overseas Chinese as political revolutionary was heavily politicised by the revolutionary policies of Mainland China in the 1950s and 1960s. Third, through the operational means of foreign direct investment, the overseas Chinese image of economic energiser was re-focused and mirror-imaged with the imperative of the economic reform of Mainland China in the 1970s and 1980s. On the one hand, the images of involuntary migrant, political revolutionary and economic energiser of the Southeast Asian overseas Chinese describe their situational status. On the other hand, these images also reflect the contemporary historical development of Mainland China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contends that the principle of separation of politics and economics is the policy that Southeast Asian countries pursue in developing their relations with China and Taiwan. Information on the issue on China's missile tests in Taiwan Strait; Three theoretical arguments on the issue; Analysis of the three theoretical arguments.