You have been asked by a Southeast Asian government of your choosing to write a memo about whether or not to participate in China’s Belt and Road initiative. Should Chinese investment in your country be welcomed or resisted?

You have been asked by a Southeast Asian government of your choosing to write a memo about whether or not to participate in China’s Belt and Road initiative. Should Chinese investment in your country be welcomed or resisted? Please be specific in outlining what your country’s national interests are and consider what policies your government might pursue to realize these objectives.

Required reading

Prashanth Parameswaran, “ASEAN’s Divided Approach to China’s Rise,” The ASAN Forum, October 6, 2016

http://www.theasanforum.org/aseans-divided-approach-to-chinas-rise/

Yun Sun, “Winning Projects and Hearts? Three Cases of Chinese Mega-Infrastructure Projects in Southeast Asia,” ASAN Forum, November 3, 2017

http://www.theasanforum.org/winning-projects-and-hearts-three-cases-of-chinese-mega-infrastructure-projects-in-southeast-asia/?dat

Additional Reading

Cheng-Chwee Kuik, “How Do Weaker States Hedge? Unpacking ASEAN States’ Alignment Behavior Towards China,” Journal of Contemporary China, 25, 100 (2016)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/10670564.2015.1132714

Alice D. Ba, “Is China Leading? China, Southeast Asia and East Asian Integration,” Political Science 66, 2 (2014): 143-165.

A few country studies: Kevin Hewison, “Thailand: an Old Relationship Renewed,” The Pacific Review, 31, 1 (2018) here.

John Ciorciari, “A Chinese model for patron–client relations? The Sino-Cambodian partnership,” International Relations of the Asia-Pacific 15 (2015): 245–278.

Le Hong Hiep, “Pull and Push: Sino-Vietnamese Relations and President Xi’s Hanoi Visit,” ISEAS Perspective December 2017 here.