1. Different Atitudes toward ASEAN Claimed and Non-claimed SCS States
As mentioned above, Beijing like to categorize nations as
“friends” or “enemies” as a guide to the conduct of its bilateral relations. However, for the sake of its neighborhood policy, Beijing still avoids clearly defining which nations are its “enemies.”
After 2009, Beijing has also been engaged in maritime disputes with Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam in different parts of the South China Sea, and with Japan over islands in the East China Sea. Mainland China’s mixed strategy implies that the sea disputes are isolated from other aspects of the Sino-ASEAN relationship. Bei-jing’s military, diplomatic and trade relations with ASEAN countries as a whole should remain undamaged by this territorial dispute, meaning that ASEAN countries themselves can take advantage of mainland China’s soft-power approach to the region.
There is a dividing line between the two, so that ASEAN countries can continue to benefit from the best that Beijing has to offer, while minimizing the spill-over effects of the rockier side of their relations.
The dividing line means that although the South China Sea conflict may remain unresolved, it can be confined to only one part of the
broader Sino-ASEAN relationship. If the conflict does not infect other aspects of the relationship, all countries will be able to focus on the business of strengthening economic prosperity, military co-operation and political stability, without constantly worrying about a looming “China threat.”
However, those ASEAN countries which clearly claim the South China Sea are treated differently by Beijing. For example, Benigno Aquino III, the president of the Philippines expressed concern about what he called the “hot to cold” messages from mainland China in the protracted territorial disputes with his country—and others in the region—over areas of the South China Sea. He described the rela-tionship with mainland China as confusing at times. While trade con-tinues to grow, he said, a travel advisory is in force in mainland China discouraging visits to the Philippines. Other mixed messages recur as well. “There was a time when they were stopping our exports of bananas,” Aquino said. “At the end of the day, it goes from hot to cold; sometimes they’re very conciliatory; sometimes they make very provocative statements,” he said. “We will confess we don’t understand some of the messages sometimes. We’re not sure.”30
2. Push High-speed rail export to ASEAN countries
A favorite export from mainland China to its neighbors these days are high-speed rail lines designed to make trade routes in the vast stretches of Asia more accessible and fortify Chinese dreams of turning its southern reaches into the capital of mainland Southeast Asia. A rail project that would pass through the mountains of northeast Myanmar to the coastal plains on the Indian Ocean would give
Rick Gladstone, “Philippines Concerned About China, Leader Says,” The New York Times, September 23, 2014, <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/24/world/asia/philip-pines-president-aquino-concerned-about-china-president-says.html?_r=0>.
mainland China a shortcut to the Middle East and Europe. For mainland China, the strategic importance of the proposed line can barely be overstated: the route would provide an alternative to the longer and increasingly contentious trip through the South China Sea.31
However, the Myanmar government viewed the project as a one-sided proposition and put it on the back burner last month, allowing a memorandum of understanding to lapse. It gave no timeline for when it might reconsider. “If the project is to be resumed, another memorandum has to be signed,” Ye Htut, the minister of information said, “and we have many things to think about before we might do that.”32
It is the second major Chinese project to be suspended in Myanmar
—once an unquestioning client of mainland China—since a nominally civilian government took over there three years ago, setting off a tussle for influence in the country between mainland China and the United States and its allies. In 2011, soon after the new government took office, construction of the Chinese-financed Myitsone hydro-electric dam at the headwaters of the Irrawaddy River was suspended.
On the other side, as mentioned above, with considerable gusto, the new junta in Thailand gave approval on August 1 for two Chinese high-speed rail projects that had been shelved because of financing
Patricia Leong, “China to Build High Speed Railway to Southeast Asia,” Asia Briefing, January 23, 2014, <http://www.asiabriefing.com/news/2014/01/china-build-high-speed-railway-southeast-asia/#sthash.S64u4okA.dpuf>.
Jane Perlez, “China Looks to High-Speed Rail to Expand Reach,” The New York Times, August 8, 2014, <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/09/world/asia/
china-looks-to-high-speed-rail-to-expand-reach.html>.
difficulties under the previous government. The head of the junta, Gen. Prayuth Chanocha, announced the revival of plans that call for more than 620 miles of rail links from Thailand to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, by 2021.
In all, mainland China wants to build thousands of miles of track that will loop through Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and head south to Singapore as part of a grand trans-Asian rail accord signed by nearly 20 Asian countries in 2006. However, when the people of the mainland countries soon find, through the convenience of high-speed rail, that Kunming is their closest neighbor but a few hours away, the Yunnan capital will eventually become, in effect, the capital of mainland Southeast Asia. The gravitational pull of ASEAN countries toward mainland China through its well-developed and relatively in-expensive high-speed rail technology is almost inevitable, despite opposition in some places.