Making sense of China-Southeast Asia relations

Why Xi Jinping's visit to Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia shouldn't surprise anyone

With Xi Jinping receiving red carpet+ treatment in Southeast Asia this week, mainstream media outlets and many analysts have been talking about a supposedly new Chinese charm offensive, timed to highlight the unreliability of the US.

But what's remarkable about Xi Jinping's visit to Vietnam, Cambodia and Malaysia this week is... nothing at all. It's a typical example of China's neighbourhood diplomacy, engaging on a regular basis with Southeast Asia at the highest levels. [Xi and the Politburo Standing Committee attended a work conference on just this subject last week.]

Analysts and diplomats, especially those from outside, often try to divide the region into countries that are aligning with or against China. Cambodia and Laos are often, wrongfully, portrayed as "vassals" of China, while Vietnam and the Philippines are depicted as standing up to or pushing back against Beijing.

In reality, the whole region is moving closer to China, economically, politically and strategically. That should not be a surprise, given China's size, proximity and its high levels of technological and industrial development. Southeast Asian states are being sucked closer by China's gravitational pull.

But, and it's a big but, that doesn't mean that Southeast Asian governments, or their peoples, are overjoyed about this direction of travel. Across, and within, Southeast Asian nations, there is a wide range of feelings toward and responses to China's growing might, and its path toward primacy in Asia.

When I've briefed governments on Southeast Asia's approach to China, I talk about the "Three D's" through which the region sees China: development, deference and distrust.

Development: I mean long-term economic and tech development, not development finance. China is already the biggest trading partner for the region, and a key investor in established fields such as roads, coal-fired power stations and rail, as well as new tech such as EVs, renewable energy and digital infrastructure (from 5G hardware to e-commerce platforms). Most governments see no pathway to prosperity without more China in their economies, even if they worry about concentration risks.

Deference: as we will see on Xi Jinping's visit this week, China is treated with great deference by its neighbours. This is partly because of China's size and its willingness to use assertive, aggressive and coercive behaviour to get its own way. It it also because Southeast Asian nations see China as a fellow developing nation, albeit a much larger and more powerful one, that has had to follow a similar path of combating colonialism and pursuing painful economic reforms to get where it is today. Much to the frustration of many strategic analysts in the West, China is therefore judged by different standards to the US.

Distrust: the flipside of deference is distrust. Southeast Asian nations defer to China in part because they do not have much trust in Beijing. This is true even in Cambodia and Laos. Just because governments sign up to Chinese statements about "win-win cooperation", it does not mean they put much faith in this woolly language. Southeast Asian governments are often happier criticising the US and its allies in public than they are China. Counterintuitively, this reflects a lack of trust in honest communication with China.

There’ll be much more to say on this later but for now I’ll leave you with my 3D’s.