BOOK REVIEW: ‘Under Beijing’s Shadow’

OPINION:

The world has witnessed the rise of China and with it the profound implications of its economic expansion. Before COVID-19 swept around the globe, China’s president, Xi Jinping, never failed to champion his ambitious $1 trillion “One Belt and One Road” plan to reshape global trade and to promote regional economic development through large infrastructure projects.

However, this plan is now increasingly met with doubts, setbacks and resistance among some of China’s Southeast Asian neighbors. Murray Hiebert’s “Under Beijing’s Shadow: Southeast Asia’s China Challenge” places in context how China’s ambitions and especially its maritime nationalism and geo-strategic rivalry, has created both anticipation and unease among its neighbors.

Mr. Hiebert’s cogent reporting offers insightful analysis of 10 countries that interface with China’s omnipresence in the region. 

Mr. Hiebert’s book offers more than a snapshot of how Southeast Asian nations, among them Cambodia, Myanmar, Singapore and Thailand, are responding to China’s overreach. Using knowledge gathered during his more than 40-year reporting career in the region, he writes that it “holds a special place in Chinese foreign policy owing to geography, historical economic ties, and the migration of millions of ethnic Chinese to the region.”

The writer adroitly presents both the geopolitical challenges and potential benefits to Southeast Asian countries. His division of countries into three main clusters helps the reader with its various sub-groupings, although at times they appear to be a little too pat to accommodate all of the nuances associated with the complexity of deep Chinese historical, cultural and trade ties.

In the 1990s, it’s important to recall that China was perceived as a threat to its Southeast Asian neighbors in part due to its conflicting territorial claims over the South China Sea and past support of Communist insurgency. Fast forward to today with China’s economic coercion or “charm offensive” in the form of the promised Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) development assistance projects, many of these nations were quick to be seduced by Beijing’s largesse in the form of aid and investments.

Mr. Hiebert places Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos into one pot since they are still poor and broken-down countries, which benefit from all the “carrots” associated with Chinese infrastructure projects.

There’s no disagreement with his subdivision. As a foreign correspondent, I interviewed Prime Minister Hun Sen, when he unleashed his contempt for the United States and praised Beijing for its support. Cambodia sits prominently in China’s widening economic sphere and a drive down Mao Zedong Boulevard in Phnom Penh, demonstrates the extent of dependence and democratic decline that has resulted from the Chinese Communist Party influence. 

Mr. Hiebert’s second grouping includes Thailand and Vietnam. He is quick to differentiate between the two in respect to Thailand’s “soft balancing” and Hanoi’s “hard balancing” to China. 

The author writes, “These characteristics make them interesting case studies for their ability to woo Beijing as a balance against the United States, when Washington over-turns long-standing strategic alignments to punish the military for toppling an elected government (Thailand), or to court the United States when China’s rising military capability pushes the country into seemingly costly strategic competition (Vietnam).” 

For almost 50 years, Vietnam and China have sparred over competing claims in the South China Sea or the East Sea as Hanoi prefers to call that body of water. Of course, the troubled waters include overlapping claims with Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Earlier this summer, a Chinese coast guard patrol vessel rammed and looted a Vietnamese fishing boat operating in the Paracel Islands. This is not the first incident nor will it be the last. 

“Each year some $3.4 trillion worth of trade, about one-third of the global total, passes through the sea, which also has lucrative fisheries (although less than in the past) and significant hydrocarbon reserves (albeit less that is often touted). The sea contains hundreds of rocks, islets, and shoals, most of which are uninhabited but are nonetheless subject to a patch quilt of competing sovereignty claims,” explains Mr. Hiebert.

Mr. Hiebert’s outlined third grouping is comprised of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei. Their geographic distance from China provides a false sense of security except when China’s paramilitary ships are sailing directly in the path of their fishing trawlers. The author’s incisive observations about Indonesia are most engaging. Anti-Chinese sentiments run deep in Indonesia, and there are concerns about growing Chinese economic influence in the country.

“The most fiercely independent stance in Southeast Asia is demonstrated by Indonesia, the region’s most populous country. Indonesia is not in either Beijing’s or Washington’s camp,” writes Mr. Hiebert. The former journalist is quick to suggest that Jakarta enjoys “good” relations with both China and the United States and also manages to “hold both at arm’s length.” 

With unfailing scholarship and with comprehensive interviews conducted over the past several years, Mr. Hiebert offers the reader an up-to-date analysis on Beijing’s pervasive influence in Southeast Asia and how policymakers now may be on the fence about whether these nations see their economic destinies hitched to China.

• James Borton is a foreign correspondent who has reported extensively on Southeast Asia, a past Stimson Center non-resident fellow and the co-founder of the Mekong Environment Forum. 

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UNDER BEIJING’S SHADOW: SOUTHEAST ASIA’S CHINA CHALLENGE

By Murray Hiebert

Center for Strategic and International Studies, $40, 608 pages