| Summary/Abstract |
The rise of China raises questions about international order and whether traditional power structures will be transformed peacefully or confrontationally. Actively engaged in trade and investment activities with its Southeast Asian neighbourhood, China has been exerting political influence on many Southeast Asian states, cleaving regional cohesion and raising levels of tensity in the region. This article presupposes that within so-called non-traditional security (NTS) areas, there is room for China and Southeast Asian countries to circumvent the political tensions, to some extent. It presumes that NTS issues facilitate greater interaction with/on China for Southeast Asian states, including enhanced European Union (EU)-Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) engagement on China. Recognising the increasing and rather underexplored importance of the NTS perspective on the official and scholarly levels, this article delves into the rhetoric of NTS from a European perspective with particular view towards the South China Sea issue to demonstrate the use and utility of the NTS concept in the EU-ASEAN context against the backdrop of China's rise.
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