Over the past two decades, the rise of China in economic and geopolitical
terms has reinvented China as a global "superpower," a key member
of the East Asia Community, and a "friend" and potential strategic
partner of Southeast Asian states.
This research project examines the impact of China's rise from the perspectives
of East and Southeast Asian states and societies at three levels: national,
international and transnational.
On the national level, we look at how the increasing presence of China
has modified Southeast Asian state policies and (re)shaped societal attitudes
toward China and the ethnic Chinese minority within their own borders.
On the international level, the geopolitical and economic importance of
China has reconfigured inter-state relations in ways that call for rethinking
both the realist paradigm of "balance of power" as well as liberalist
language of "interdependence." On the transnational level, we
track the specific densities and pathways of interflows of capital, people,
goods, and ideas between China and Southeast Asia, and explore how these
flows contribute to the making of East Asia as an "open region."
