China’s Rise and the Geopolitics of Southeast Asia

Absztrakt

The following paper attempts to give an overview on how the rise of China, and the geopolitics of Southeast Asia seem to affect each other. The paper will take a one-by-one overview of each and every ASEAN member state and see what China’s rise mean regarding their own individual strategic interests, and at the end makes an attempt to draw a conclusion of this overview. The main findings of the paper are that the individual interests of the countries of Southeast Asia are likely to prevent the ASEAN to form a regional security bloc or a united front against China, especially that some of these countries even view the growing influence of China as a positive development. At the same time, several key countries of the group in contrary view China as a threat, and seem to be eager to stand up to it with US assistance, so it is also unlikely that the ASEAN as a whole would become the sphere of influence of China. The conclusion of the paper is that the most likely scenario is that the region, amidst growing economic integration, will end up in strategically separating to a group of pro-China, and to another group of pro-US countries, albeit possibly by no formal arrangements. A certain geographical distinction also seems to coincide with this.