China has become a very powerful country that influences the development of the regional and global economy. The region of South East Asia is the closest to China and many countries from this region have had either tense or very positive relations with China throughout the course of the history. Nowadays China is applying the “Good Neighborhood” diplomacy, but many think that China is “a wolf in sheep’s clothing” (Lin 1). The next step that China is going to take on the international arena is the implementation of two initiatives Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road that are expected to provide the benefits to all involved countries and organizations.
In my research paper, I intend to analyze the foreign strategy that China is applying in South East Asia and what strategic goals it has for the future. It is of great importance to assess what role China would like to play in the region and what could the advantages of the two new initiatives for China be. In order to write this paper, I intend to use several credible sources, in particular the articles that were written by the experts in foreign relations with the focus on China and South East Asia.
The Asia Program Special Report prepared by the specialists of the Wilson Center contains three articles written by John W. Graver, Dennis V. Hickey and Michael R. Chambers. They focus on the relations between China and the various countries in South Asia. In the articles the authors discuss the problems in the bilateral relations and the possibilities of creating the win-win neighborhood in the region of South East Asia. The Asia Program Special Report argues that China’s main interest is to maintain the status-quo in the region and to avoid militarization and other destabilization factors. At the same time, the authors think that the “good neighbor” diplomacy may be unsustainable, because of the uneasy China’s relations with such countries as Japan, Taiwan or India (Lin 1).
The next useful source is the report China’s Maritime Silk Road and Asia prepared by the National Maritime Foundation in 2016. In this report, there are many articles directly related to the topic of my research paper. One of the articles that I am going to use is the article Southeast Asian Responses to China’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road Initiative written by Irene Chan. In this article the author analyzes what ASEAN’s responses and concerns over the Maritime Silk Road Initiative may be. Irene Chan provides a lot of information that will be of use for the in-depth analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed initiatives for the countries in South East Asia.
Finally, it is worth analyzing the document Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road prepared by the Chinese authorities. This document was issued in 2015 in order to present the initiatives and contains all information about the framework, cooperation priorities and mechanisms, China’s activities, etc. Information provided in this document will help to understand better what political and economic goals the Chinese government pursues. In addition, there are many paragraphs concerning the ASEAN region which will be used for references when I will be writing my research paper.
As the result, the research paper will be divided in three parts – analysis of the bilateral relations between China and South East Asian countries, analysis of the challenges that the countries will have to resolve in order to make the initiatives effective and functional, and analysis of the initiatives with the focus of the region of South East Asia. If there is insufficient information in the articles mentioned above, the other sources will be used to complete the gap.
Works Cited
Garver, J., Hickey, D., Chambers, M. “China’s “Good Neighbor” Diplomacy: A Wolf in
Sheep’s Clothing?” Asia Program Special Report. No.126. Wilson Center. January
2005. Web. 10 April 2016.
Chan, Irene. “Southeast Asian Responses to China’s 21st Century Maritime Silk Road
Initiative”. China’s Maritime Silk Road and Asia edited by Sakhuja, V. and Chan, J.
National Maritime Foundation. 2016. Web. 10 April 2016.
“Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century
Maritime Silk Road”. National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China. 28
March 2015. Web. 10 April 2016
