| ID | 162696 |
| Title Proper | Is Southeast Asia Really Balancing against China? |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Zhang, Feng |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | For all of China’s new assertiveness since 2010, the East Asian territorial and maritime disputes, especially those with Southeast Asian claimant states bordering the South China Sea, stand out as the most significant. Yet a decade before, Southeast Asia was also the region where China’s diplomacy had been most successful. So skillful was Chinese policy at the time that the noted China scholar David Shambaugh wrote in 2004 that “most nations in the region now see China as a good neighbor, a constructive partner, a careful listener, and a nonthreatening regional power.”1
1 David Shambaugh, “China Engages Asia: Reshaping the Regional Order,” International Security 29, no. 3 (Winter 2004/2005): 64.
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It is puzzling that China should have squandered so much diplomatic goodwill and strategic gain painstakingly built up since the late 1990s. For many observers, Beijing has engaged in a self-defeating strategy of alienating its neighbors, damaging its image, and reigniting regional fears of Chinese power, with the risk of strategic isolation and even encirclement. |
| `In' analytical Note | Washington Quarterly Vol. 41, No.3; Fall 2018: p.191-204 |
| Journal Source | Washington Quarterly Vol: 41 No 3 |
| Key Words | China ; Southeast Asia |