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Future international relations in East Asia are likely to be largely shaped by the maritime strategies and policies of various actors. This paper examines China's policy and behavior in maritime cooperation in the East Asian region in recent years, a topic that has been insufficiently understood. I suggest that while it is necessary and useful to take into account China's naval power, more attention to Chinese intentions and policy on East Asian maritime issues is warranted to arrive at a more balanced, and arguably more accurate, understanding of China's role in East Asian maritime affairs. This paper takes stock of China's changing perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors in maritime cooperation in the region. I describe China's new policy moves in the South China Sea and East China Sea. I also address some of the major Chinese concerns for further maritime cooperation in East Asia. I conclude that while a grand cooperative maritime regime is still not possible from a Chinese perspective, China is likely to agree to more extensive and substantive maritime cooperation in many functional areas, most notably in the non-traditional security arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vying for high-speed railway projects overseas has become a prominent feature of China's diplomacy in recent years, including in Southeast Asia. These efforts have been widely depicted within the premises of the China Threat narrative – as a part of Beijing's agenda to alter the power balance in Southeast Asia at the expense of the economic, political, and security well-being of countries in the region. This paper challenges such interpretations and concludes that these projects do not have either the intention or capacity to facilitate such a hostile and far-reaching agenda toward the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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]

Viewed through the standard prisms of international politics, escalation of security tensions is the definitive feature in the evolution of relations between China and Southeast Asia over the last decade. Disagreements over territorial ownership of and rights to the South China Sea sharpened and arguably became the defining feature of regional geopolitics. Yet, China and Southeast Asia have also managed to prove predictions of fateful conflict to be premature. In this article, we study Chinese and Southeast Asian strands of security discourse, which provide political and diplomatic cover for cooperative interaction in parallel with little or no compromise on security principles. Then we select interactions between China and the Philippines and China and Vietnam as cases to illustrate our observations. We conclude by postulating that, at least in the maritime space, tension management rather than conflict resolution is more likely to be the continuing feature into the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the literature on state transformation focuses on China's relations with African, Asian and Latin American countries and the National Oil Companies' overseas expansion to show that China has become fragmented, decentralised and internationalised. This article contributes novel findings by focusing on China's relations with Europe and the actions of China's National Nuclear Companies (NNCs). It shows that NNCs, which have become relatively autonomous actors, often pursue their agendas of expansion into Europe without much coordination with, or even in contradiction to, other ministries' agendas and interests, especially the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Instead of being orchestrated by the central government, their expansion reflects considerable disorganisation and sometimes undermines China's official strategy. The article demonstrates this through case studies of NNCs' involvement in the UK and Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reviews China's diplomacy toward Southeast Asia and ASEAN chronologically from the 1990s to 2015, focusing on the changes that occurred during the second half of the Hu Jintao Administration and the further policy adjustments made during the first Xi Jinping Administration. While there are still many uncertainties regarding the policies, and many aspects are still in progress, this study provides an outline of the current period of change in China's relations with Southeast Asia and China's more active engagement in relations with ASEAN from the late 1990s through the early 21st century. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses conflict in the South China Sea and its Islands, focusing on a lack of resolution of disputes over sovereignty and control involving China and ASEAN countries such as Vietnam and the Philippines. The author highlights international, regional, and bilateral strategies for resolving conflict in the South China Sea, including discussions of a lack of involvement by the United Nations (U.N.), Track-2 (nongovernmental) diplomacy efforts, and foreign relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and Vietnam. It is suggested that balancing strategies involving outside countries such as the U.S. may preserve the status quo in the South China Sea region.

The article discusses conflicts over issues of sovereignty and freedom of navigation in the South China Sea (SCS), focusing on the involvement of the U.S. in the region in the 21st century. The author notes that countries such as the U.S., Japan, and India have interests in the SCS and highlights both diplomatic approaches to conflict and the building of military strength in order to address conflicts through force. The SCS is highlighted as a potential threat to maritime security, and multilateral efforts to address the issue by ASEAN are noted. Other topics include China's involvement in the region; a Code of Conduct on SCS disputes; and the 45th annual ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) on July 9, 2012.

This article analyses China's hydro-politics along the Mekong River. It seeks to explain why China's unilateral dam-building projects on the upper reaches of the river have not been met with sustained criticism on the part of the downstream riparian countries, for which upstream dams are likely to have severe negative consequences. It is held that China has embarked on a strategy of implicit and broadly conceived actor-reversed issue linkage as a means to nip any loud disapproval of its dams in the bud. By downplaying its dam-building projects and instead promoting common development goals with the Mekong riparian countries through highly increased political and economic engagement, Beijing has successfully defused any potential counter-measures against its dams, at least for the time being. The sustainability of this strategy and its transferability to others of China's trans-boundary rivers must be questioned. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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]

Drawing support from international institution theory, this article analyzes China's new thinking about Asian diplomacy after the Cold War. Institutionalism was flexibly utilized by China in its peripheral regions—Central Asia, Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and South Asia, which have adopted institutional models—dominant participation, deep participation, active participation, and moderate participation models. China tries to handle the presence of U.S. interests well and has responded reasonably to U.S. pragmatic institutional engagement. To realize the aim of compatibility and coexistence between China and the United States in Asia, the two countries should establish interconnecting institutions in both economic and political fields. With regard to the future interactive trends of China and the United States in Asia, the author, from the dimension of international institutionalism, works out an institutional interplay—nested and overlapping institutions—for China and the United States to achieve accommodation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]