美中全球议题对话项目

这次采访是用英语进行的。

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Eleanor Albert: Today’s guests are Prashanth Parameswaran and Yun Sun.

Prashanth Parameswaran is a fellow with the Wilson Center’s Asia Program, where he analyzes Southeast Asian political and security issues, Asian defense affairs, and U.S. foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific. He is also deputy head of research at the consultancy BowerGroupAsia and senior columnist at the Diplomat. He is the author of Elusive
Balances: Shaping U.S.-Southeast Asia Strategy (2022), which develops and applies a “balance of commitment” approach to the U.S. commitment in Southeast Asia over the past half century.

Yun Sun is a senior fellow and co-director of the East Asia Program and director of the China Program at the Stimson Center. Her expertise is in Chinese foreign policy, U.S.-China relations, and China’s relations with neighboring countries and authoritarian regimes. She previously was a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, an analyst for the International Crisis Group in Beijing, and worked on U.S.-Asia relations here in Washington, DC. 

Yun and Prashanth, welcome to the show!

Prashanth Parameswaran: Thank you.

Yun Sun: Thank you for having me.

Eleanor Albert: To kick us off, I wanted to ask about how both of you entered this research space and dig into how China factors into your research focus on Southeast Asia. Let's start with you Prashanth, and then we'll turn to Yun.

Prashanth Parameswaran: I really fell into it. I was born in Malaysia originally. My dad was a journalist working there, so I grew up in Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, and I traveled to a lot of the Southeast Asian countries, and so when I went to college, that was what I wanted to study, and when I was studying politics and security in Southeast Asia, it was really difficult to get away from China. It was always a variable: either for better or for worse. I felt like other powers were also comparing themselves to China. So whether I was working at the Diplomat or working at think tanks or working now in BowerGroupAsia, I feel like even though my focus was on Southeast Asia politics and security, it always comes around to China one way or the other.

Eleanor Albert: How about you, Yun?

Yun Sun: Well, I really started as a Northeast Asianist and that's Japan, South Korea, and North Korea, China. I came from China background. I was born in China. I went to the Foreign Affairs College, which is affiliated with the Chinese Foreign Ministry, but I did not become a diplomat and my graduate study back at the Front Affairs College was about the North Korean nuclear crisis.

I bumped into Southeast Asia studies when I took the job with the International Crisis Group as their China analyst in Beijing. One of the first countries that I was looking into was China's relationship with Burma, Myanmar. This was before the political reform really started in the country. It was after the cyclone Nargis, before the country even opened up. It gave me a very different experience from Northeast Asia.

And I started to visit Southeast Asia every year. I was visiting Burma a number of times every year since 2008 until COVID[-19] hit. When I returned to Washington and started working at Stimson Center as their China person, I also realized that China can really absorb everything, all your time, your work, your life. And I decided that I needed a distraction, which is why I chose Southeast Asia as my concentration for Ph.D. studies. I studied Burmese. I kept going to Southeast Asia every year. That really provided a healthy counterbalance to my focus on China. China's relationship with Southeast Asia also has so much depth and so much to study.

Eleanor Albert: That's a perfect transition because I want to start looking at all of these nuances. I want to ask both of you to examine how you think China’s regional presence is viewed in Southeast Asia and what are the differences among the region’s countries? Yun, why don't you give us a take on this, and then we can turn to Prashanth.

Yun Sun: It definitely depends on which country you're talking about, because for countries that are either still under Communist Party rule, or used to have a longer or deeper authoritarian regime history, I think the relationship with China is more complicated. If you look at Laos and Vietnam, their relationship with China is certainly very different than the relationship between, say, the Philippines and Indonesia.

I don't think there is one way that we can generalize how 10 Southeast Asian countries feel about China. But if we do have to make some general observations, there is a sense that China is indispensable in terms of economic partnerships for the region. I was just looking at the trade data that the Chinese government released from 2022, again, Southeast Asia is China's top trading partner, ranking ahead of both the European Union and the United States. Across the region, there's recognition that China is going to be an integral part of the regional economy.

But the sense about China as a security presence is much more mixed. There is a general anxiety in the region about China being potentially a hegemonic player, which goes to the next point, which is that Southeast Asia always says, [in] U.S.-China great power competition, “Please don't force us to choose; don't make us choose.” And the interesting response is always it's good to have the choices. It's good that you are in a in a position to choose, but I think that also reflects a mentality that we do see quite prevalently in the region which is a desire for balance, whether it is soft balance, whether it's hard balance. You could say that the Southeast Asian countries are in different places along that spectrum. If complete deference to China is on one extreme and alliance with U.S. is on the other extreme, I think the 10 countries are all somewhere located along the spectrum.

Eleanor Albert: Prashanth?

Prashanth Parameswaran: I would agree with that characterization about making sure that we are diversifying how we think about it, by country. Increasingly, what we're seeing as China's presence grows even more in the region, and we have this period of intensified U.S.-China competition, each government also may have different postures.

Just to add to Yun’s point on the data, you can really see a bifurcation between the economic dimension and the security dimension. The foreign policy community of Indonesia, they've done a survey over a number of years now on ASEAN-China relations. And very clearly you look at the top issues where things are good with China: it’s trade, it’s investment, it’s supply chains, it’s technology. What are the things that are bad or negative? It’s immigration, transnational crime, sovereignty issues.

There also is a really interesting trend that we're seeing in the region about how China is perceived relative to the United States. I think if you look at for example, Singapore, they do an annual elite survey. There's a recurring theme where China is already recognized as the primary, not just economic, but security player in Southeast Asia.

At the same time, if you look at the trust levels, the levels of confidence, China ranks extremely low relative to the United States. I think when you're dealing with a region like Southeast Asia where trust and confidence among the elite doesn't necessarily generate into goodwill and actual outcomes for the United States relative to China… Look at the example of Malaysia and Najib Razak, former prime minister and the 1MDB scandal. There are other examples in the region: Cambodia, and some of the issues regarding naval presence and the security presence with respect to China. These are regimes that are incredibly interested in regime stabilization, first and foremost, rather than geopolitical competition for its own sake, for balance of power, or other considerations.

Finally, I would say, we really need to pay attention to the people of Southeast Asia. The majority of Southeast Asians have never heard of the Global Security Initiative or the Global Development Initiative, right? But that doesn't matter, because if you look at Laos—I was in Laos just a few months ago—if you're taking the high-speed rail transit that China has built in Laos, and you’re a student, you've never seen parts of Laos before, and that's the way in which you're seeing your own country that is going to have a powerful set of impacts about how you understand China's presence. If you're, say, closer to one of these dams in the Mekong, and you are displaced as a villager… When we talk about the impacts of China and perceptions, there's the aggregate perception, but I also think when you get to the street, you really have to get more granular in terms of how individual people are affected.

Eleanor Albert: That's super interesting. It's valuable to look at politics, not just at an executive-to-executive level, but the different dimensions of what it means to have an external power like China, and how local populations relate to it…

Yun Sun: I think one thing that people have to recognize is the law of geography. China is right there. There is not a Pacific Ocean between the region and China. China borders mainland Southeast Asia, and the traveling distance between China to maritime Southeast Asia is simply much shorter. That is where I would say the law of gravity or the law of physics will dictate. China is that large and economic and political and security presence in the region. The law of gravity is going to generate all this power to pull these countries on China's periphery into China's orbit.

When China builds infrastructure projects from China to the rest of the world, those are the first stops that China will come across. We definitely are going to see a higher level of saturation of the Chinese presence and Chinese influence in this region. I hear this argument for competition a lot, that the [United States] needs to do more, the U.S. needs to compete with China in these countries, in this region. Sometimes I feel that defies the law of gravity because we are really not there. And it will be very difficult for us to try to compete with China because we're not on equal footing. They're right there, let alone that they have a state-dominated approach, which is very different from the U.S., private sector-led approach. I feel that that that factor of geography cannot be overemphasized.

Prashanth Parameswaran: Geography, and size I would say is the other component, which is that I mean, these countries really feel that gravity that Yun was talking about. The United States already starts at an inherent disadvantage because of that lack of presence that's felt geographically, but then also, yes, a very different approach to how we deal with the private sector relative to the government.

In Southeast Asia, there is more of a government or state-led, or at least collaboration between the public and private sector in a model that is closer to, not necessarily China, but Japan, and South Korea, and some of these other countries. Sometimes the competition needs to be framed not just directly but indirectly in collaboration with other countries.

Eleanor Albert: Absolutely. We'll turn back to the U.S. in a second, but I want to stay focused on the region to unpack some of the country differences and also these differences between government and local populations. I'm curious if there are certain issues that tend to trigger a shift in Southeast Asian countries vis-a-vis China? And do these shifts play out differently within these contexts? Prashanth, do you want to take that first?

Prashanth Parameswaran: In terms of the differences, look at the earlier case of Malaysia. That's a case where you see the Chinese influence, not just economically, in terms of things like how the government is either perceived to be giving in or being seen as not being as strong on some of its claims in the South China Sea and confrontingChina on some of those issues.

And keep in mind, a lot of these Southeast Asian countries, their militaries are not going to match China anytime soon. They come at this from a huge asymmetric disadvantage. They're trying to bridge some of that, but really, the economics and the security and the diplomatic and the political components are all integrated. So that's one example in maritime Southeast Asia where you have a country that's more distant from China.

But you get closer to mainland Southeast Asia, and you get issues in places like Laos, for example, or Cambodia… There are stories almost every couple of weeks on a rubber plantation that's happened and you have a Chinese company that's involved, and villagers are getting displaced and the anger sometimes is directed at China. The anger is sometimes also directed at the government for not protecting the interests of the local population.

You've seen, an issue that most of Southeast Asia sees is these strings of sort of illegal gambling and scams that are based in Cambodia and parts of mainland Southeast Asia that have dragged in citizens from maritime Southeast Asian countries like Malaysia, and those have some ties to China, whether you look at drugs and so on and so forth. There is this illicit economy component.

I would say if I was looking at one issue that I think doesn't get as much attention as it should, it's the environment. I think we talk a lot about the Mekong subregion and the dam and hydropower issues, and that's one dimension absolutely, I don't want to understate that… But I think issues when it comes to land rights, deforestation, environmental degradation, there is this connection in a lot of parts of Southeast Asia about the connection between the land and the water and the relationship to the people that's extremely strong. So when you get governments that are not seen as advancing the people's interests or you get Chinese companies that are coming in who don't have the necessary standards, that's a big consideration.

Obviously, the South China Sea is a major issue as well. It's one of those things that's going to be an issue. Chinese diplomats are saying publicly what they may have been saying more privately in the past. I hear it whenever I go to the region. When I was in Indonesia and Malaysia recently, I was in a conversation where I heard a Chinese official say a variant of “We understand that the South China Sea is an issue for you, but don't you agree that, relatively speaking now compared to 10 years ago, this is 1/30th of our relationship rather than 1/15th of our relationship?” That's essentially the strategy, that as China's influence grows, it has more pressure points on these Southeast Asian countries, yes, it's going to have challenges, but these challenges are going to be seen relative to the opportunities, and I think a lot of these regimes see more of those opportunities relative to the challenges.

Eleanor Albert: Yun, what do you see as some of these issues that can be a moment of reckoning or tension points where there might be discrepancies between governments and populations?

Yun Sun: I agree with what Prashanth has said. The rough generalization people will come up with that all for maritime Southeast Asia is the key issue is really the South China Sea, but that includes Vietnam as well, and then for mainland Southeast Asia, one issue that has a strategic modality to weave other countries in the region is Mekong. That's what my colleagues here at Stimson on Southeast Asia program are working on that, The Mekong River issue is the water distribution; the impact of the Chinese dams on the upper stream of Mekong…. I think those are all legitimate characterizations.

One issue that Southeast Asian countries and their populations are particularly alert and sensitive towards is any attempt from China to interfere in their domestic politics. We have seen this historically during the Cold War: we saw the Communist campaign in Myanmar, the potential in Malaysia, and what happened in Indonesia. In more recent years, we're also seeing, for example, political candidates in Indonesia or political candidates in Philippines being singled out for their relationship with China. These Chinese attempts to interfere or to manipulate domestic politics in Southeast Asian countries are always put under additional scrutiny, and I think it has the most potential to rupture China's relationship with a given Southeast Asian country.

Are there recent examples of this political interference? We've seen anecdotes here and there, in the case of Indonesia, in the Philippines… In the case of Malaysia, there was actually a very clear case where the Chinese embassy or the Chinese ambassador was stating his support for local political parties that represents ethnic Chinese population’s interests. But I don't think any of those cases has really come to the level of ruptured bilateral relations, but I do think that if any candidate is identified as having special ties with China, that almost immediately discredits the candidate and negatively sabotages their future in the election.

In terms of the relationship between people and the state, I don't know whether I'm coming from a more of an Asian perspective…. I feel that this emphasis on the differences between the people and the state is a very Western concept. Of course, it's naturally a derivative of our belief or our practice of democracy. We believe that people will matter because people decide the government and then what people care about, the government should listen.

But we also have to remind ourselves that that is not necessarily the case for the majority of the rest of the world. If you look at the number of true democracies, we call them liberal democracies, in Europe and in North America and a couple of countries in the rest of the world, the absolute number of liberal democracies is a very small minority. So not to say that people's will in less democratic countries or undemocratic countries does not matter. But I think the emphasis “Oh, here's the people's view, how it differs from the government's view about China's presence in their own country.” I feel that it has been exaggerated.

For example, if you look at Cambodia, or if you look at look at Laos, we look at how the local populations, indigenous populations have been affected by Chinese projects and how they do not benefit as much as, let's say some government officials or the central government. But what is the implication of that? What is the policy ramification of that of that divide? We hear this a lot: “Oh, how about the civil society? How about the local population who do not like the Chinese investment or the Chinese projects there?” Yeah, but to what extent does that change government policy? Not that it doesn't matter, it still matters, but I feel that the civil society and public opinion will have to be strengthened to a much higher level for it to have a policy impact.

Prashanth Parameswaran: Should it matter, yes, should the populations have input into government policy and should be differentiated whether they actually do have an impact on government policy. In some of these Southeast Asian countries, they don't. It's often just framed as China's behavior, but sometimes it also reflects government policy and the divisions within the government about how these policies are enacted, right? The difference between central authorities and local authorities and all the complexities in these Southeast Asian countries. That's also important.

The other point I'd make is the differentiation between the state and the people is something that we have to keep in mind. We also have to keep in mind that a big difference between the Western conception and how things play out in Southeast Asia is that irrespective of the relationship between the state and the people, people are generally used to stronger government.

Eleanor Albert: I want to look at some of the policy areas more closely. In both of your opening remarks, we talked about geography and the sheer presence of the trade relationship, and the investment relationship. These are clearly elements that physically and materially bind Southeast Asia to China. I was wondering if we could look across these areas. Are there differences among the countries of which policy areas are a stronger tether and then what some of the wedge issues are? Yun, do you want to take this first?

Yun Sun: Again, it's difficult to generalize, but I would say that trade and investment economic relations is the strongest linkage.

But if you look at for example the U.S.-ASEAN Summit last May and ASEAN leaders look at the takeaway or look at what U.S. realistically put on the table. I think people cannot help but to compare that: here's the dollar number that the U.S. is willing to contribute, right? ASEAN leaders were not necessarily impressed with the number because China is able to offer much more because China has a different model and because China is much closer. So I would say that across the board, the trade, investment, financing, development opportunities offered by China, that really the strongest pull is from China towards Southeast Asia or pulling Southeast Asia towards China because nobody is willing to give that up. Nobody could find an easy replacement of what China is willing to put on the table.

Then if you look under the framework of the trade and investment and economic opportunities being the top priority, I would say countries have different priorities. If you look at Myanmar, for example, I think the priority for the military government is to make sure that China will not abandon them and China will be on its side and China is not going to support UN sanction resolution against Myanmar at this point.

If you look at Vietnam. I still think there is the party-to-party solidarity or the solidarity among Communist parties is a key component to bilateral relations. That ideological factor… That there are only a handful of communist countries left in the whole world and “we need to have that solidarity among ourselves.” It still comes out as a very distinct feature, or a distinct component of that relationship.

For Cambodia, having China as a patron… People have regarded it as patron-client relationship for more than a decade, starting with Cambodia's chairmanship of ASEAN back in 2012. I think people see this is a patron-client relationship and China has already saturated through Cambodia, regardless of the pushback from the opposition or from civil society, and against some of the illicit activities in, for example, Sihanoukville… That's a different kind of tether. I would say that in the case of Cambodia, the Hun Sen government is actually much more dependent on China in terms of aid and political support for their own legitimacy and survival.

So each country is very different, and I wouldn't draw the distinction based on regime type. While Duterte was democratically elected, and Aung San Suu Kyi was democratically elected and you don't see either one of them taking a particularly anti-China position. I don't necessarily think that Southeast Asian countries’ relationship with China, the path dependence, lies in the regime type. But having said that, I think the authoritarian regimes certainly has more assistance to ask for from China and China certainly has more to offer.

Prashanth Parameswaran: I'd agree. The binding factors lie in the economic sphere very clearly. Now there's a lot of nervousness in 2023 about the condition of the global economy. In almost all of the Southeast Asian countries that I visited last year, everyone was saying that the impact of the lack of Chinese tourists was devastating. Some of these economies and some of their tourism hotspots, they had to think about ways of diversifying the economy. In this context of reopening, whatever the future prospects of that may hold, China's influence and status are so big that you can feel these countries actually reacting to that.

That economic factor is absolutely critical. As we talked about earlier, China putting some actual infrastructure projects produces a direct linkage to these countries, which the United States can't provide. You can build something from China to Laos. You can't build something from Laos to Mississippi. Fundamentals of geography on that binding front.

On the wedge issues, we already talked about politics and interference in domestic politics and influence operations. We're starting to see that not just in mainland Southeast Asia, but also countries like Singapore, for example.

We talked about the environment and some of these transnational issues, transnational crime. Then I would say the sort of traditional security bucket, which I really don't like that term, but South China Sea, the traditional balance of power questions, but also things like cyber security.

It is critical for us to appreciate how in the region folks are thinking very granularly now. So when we talk about the economy, even on trade and investment, we really need to talk about what specific areas are we referring to. When you talk about supply chains, yes, supply chain shocks are a huge issue—Russia-Ukraine, China, COVID, so on and so forth—but for some of these Southeast Asian countries, they are major beneficiaries of this because some of the supply chains are shifting over to Vietnam and other Southeast Asian countries.

I really do think that when you talk to Southeast Asians, yes, they may, in public, complain a little bit, say “Oh, we're nervous about U.S.-China competition….” But we have to keep in mind, no one needs to tell these Southeast Asian countries that China is a challenge or an opportunity.

They've been dealing with China, which is far closer, for centuries. The Vietnamese don't need to be told about China being a challenge. The key issue for them is how do you navigate that within a context of the balance of power where there is more unpredictability about some of the aspects of the international system and the other players.

So, we really need to think about these competitive dynamics and the role of individual powers more sectorally. Perhaps China has a really big influence on infrastructure, but perhaps the United States could carve out a niche on, say, food security. Perhaps Japan, which has done a lot more thinking on economic security, has that space. South Korea has been thinking about digital and 5G. I think the sectoralization of these areas is really important for us to keep in mind as we're thinking about these buckets of binding issues or wedge issues.

Eleanor Albert: That's great. We're talking about China and Southeast Asia, but certainly there are other players geographically and also by sheer virtue of size, the U.S. coming to mind. How does the region’s relationship to some of these other actors provide it with either opportunity or constraints when it thinks about its relationship with China?

Yun Sun: I feel the issue is not about exclusivity, right? We're not looking at any countries that can exclusively dominate the region and I don't think the region would prefer to see that picture, whether it's by the United States or it's by China. They do like to have the options.

For example, Japan and Japanese infrastructure projects have much better reputation in Southeast Asia compared to some of the projects we have seen the Chinese build. Yes, India has had this “Look East” policy. I remember discussing this like 10 years ago in India, but keep looking… India is a little bit more engaged on the issue of, for example, South China Sea, maritime security, because it has a direct implication for the Indian Ocean region with China's naval presence expanding. But I would say that India, in terms of the economic engagement with Southeast Asia, it's not really fair to compare to compare them on a dollar-to-dollar
basis.

Another actor that has been very active and has developed its own Indo-Pacific strategy is Europe. And we're looking at Germany saying “We need an engagement strategy with ASEAN; we need to have trade conversations with countries in the region.” Overall, I'm seeing that this this region is open for business with the rest of the world, whoever has the interest and whoever has the ability to engage…

But the problem is that I think people tend to simplify. When U.S.-China great power competition is the topic in town, this overarching theme, that tends to take the oxygen out of all other discussions. All these actors do not really exist, well they do exist, but if you look at the absolute, for example, number of their investment or of their financing, it may not be comparable to what China is offering, but it doesn't mean that they're not important.

But the other problem with this analytical approach is that so, if everyone is engaging; what
is the policy significance of that? Everyone is engaging in Southeast Asia and then what? I like Prashanth's approach that it needs to be sectoral. We're talking about different sectors, which country specializes or has an advantage in which sector? And yes, China is trying this all around, extensive engagement with the region. But what are some of the strengths and what are some of their weaknesses? And which country competes better?

Prashanth Parameswaran: Just add to that, a decade ago we were talking about the United States, pivoting or rebalancing to Asia, including Southeast Asia. The story since then is that everybody is pivoting Southeast Asia because of Southeast Asia's growing importance. And because of the search for different markets, because of the stories like Vietnam for example, which if you look at the story from the end of the Vietnam War up till now it's an incredible story in terms of economic development and prosperity in a short amount of time.

Then it becomes a very granular conversation about the balance of power. As one former Singapore diplomat once said, there's only one difference in how Southeast Asians view balance of power and how the United States views balance of power, which is Southeast Asians don't want anyone to dominate the region, including the United States, and the United States doesn't want any other country to dominate the region, but the United States wants to dominate the region.

But I would say if you stepped back a little bit and you asked the question: What has China done in terms of its size, its significance over the past, say decade or so and what have other powers done to balance against that? Whether it's the United States, Japan, other countries, I think you would have a very hard case to make that the balancing that has happened with respect to China has outweighed what China has done. Part of that is size. Part of that is gravity. Part of that is distance, but also the other part of that is that it's extremely hard to get even a balancing or hedging coalition in place in Asia.

Yes, you talk about the United States. You talk about Japan. After that it starts getting very thin. You talk about India…. You talk about Australia, but really depends by government. It gets very thin from there. Whether you talk about Europe or South Korea and keep in mind, we always talk about this notion of balancing as if all the other actors are in concert with the United States. But these actors are competing too. The Europeans now on climate and in digital are being seen more as leaders than the United States. Leadership in the region and where countries can play a role, I think that's another important consideration.

One final point on ASEAN and this notion of the Indo-Pacific. I think we always get caught up in this notion of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy and ASEAN centrality. There is a line of thought in Southeast Asia which is, ASEAN initially was very much for this notion of Indo Pacificization. They wanted to bring in India and some of these other countries to balance China. There was a recognition that you needed to bring in the U.S. and other countries. That recognition was there, but ASEAN hasn't really followed up on that initiative because it's been very challenging to deal with those balance of power politics in the region. Now you have ASEAN trying to catch up with all these Indo-Pacific strategies and trying to figure out what its role is. Can Southeast Asia and ASEAN deal with these balance of power dynamics internally and manage them or will external powers, as has happened quite often in Southeast Asia's history, actually dictate the terms to the detriment of these smaller powers?

Eleanor Albert: I want to ask one final question. If we look in the short to medium term, if you are watch one element of China-Southeast Asia relations, or one particular country in Southeast Asia, what would it be? Prashanth, why don't you go first?

Prashanth Parameswaran: I would go back to one of the points that Yun brought up earlier, which is a Myanmar. This is a situation that yes, it's happening in one country, but the entirety of Southeast Asia is going to be affected in some way whether the region likes it or not. You look at the list of chairmanships in ASEAN which goes by alphabetical order. Everyone is talking about the Indonesia chairmanship this year in 2023. I'm worried more about what's going to happen in the chairmanships after, which is Laos and then you have Malaysia, which has had a revolving door of governments, and then it's Myanmar. ASEAN’s going to have to figure out, if this conflict continues, how to deal with the Myanmar situation because its credibility is on the line.

There was a debate earlier about whether to include countries like Myanmar, Laos and, so on and so forth [in ASEAN], and there were some dissenters, but the view that prevailed at the end in ASEAN’s consensus vision was “Yes, it's better to have these countries in the tent than outside the tent.” And I think that conversation is now up very much up for debate in terms of how Myanmar is faring. Keep in mind, that conversation is not just about either Myanmar or the Myanmar situation. It's also about the extent to which ASEAN deals with external forces by coming together or whether to leave these countries out to deal in their own circumstances. When you have issues like Myanmar and U.S.-China tensions that dominate the conversation, it's going to be really difficult for the region to think about more positive, inclusive, and sustainable policies.

Eleanor Albert: Great. Final thoughts, Yun?

Yun Sun: I do think that Myanmar is important, but I also don't think there is much hope for a solution. I think that stalemate is going to continue. Actually, I think most of the Myanmar observers are looking at a return to history, a return to future. This all feels very familiar. On the issue of China's engagement with the region, I would agree that Myanmar is more of a test of ASEAN as a regional organization, rather than a test of China's diplomacy in the region.

But in terms of China's relationship with ASEAN this year, what I will be observing is how China is going to commemorate or celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the BRI [Belt and Road Initiative]. Because if you recall, when BRI was first announced in 2013, the Silk Road Economic Belt was announced in Kazakhstan and the Maritime Silk Road was announced in Indonesia. This year, Xi Jinping has already received his third term, the coronation has completed. There is going to be major movement in terms of this 10-year anniversary of BRI. In the past three years, because of COVID, the BRI progress was not discussed a lot. If you consider the human immobility and immobility of goods, of information, and of financing, that's all understandable. I'm curious to see what China will push out for the region in terms of the renewal of China's commitment for the BRI, given that it is the10-year anniversary and given that Xi Jinping sees BRI as his flagship foreign policy strategy. That’s what I’ll be watching for.

The views and opinions expressed are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the position of Georgetown University.

Outro

The U.S.-China Nexus is created, produced, and edited by me, Eleanor M. Albert. Our music is from Universal Production Music. Special thanks to Shimeng Tong, Tuoya Wulan, and Amy Vander Vliet. For more initiative programming, videos, and links to events, visit our website at uschinadialogue.georgetown.edu. And don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.