Not surprisingly, China ’s rapidly developing economic influence in the region is having wider political and cultural repercussions. [912] Everywhere, in varying degrees, the impact of China can be felt. The willingness of China to foster interdependence, to seek new arrangements, and to take into account the needs and interests of other nations has had an extremely favourable effect on how it is seen in most countries. [913] David Shambaugh, a leading US writer on China, argues: ‘Bilaterally and multilaterally, Beijing ’s diplomacy has been remarkably adept and nuanced, earning praise around the region. As a result, most nations in the region now see China as a good neighbor, a constructive partner, a careful listener, and a non-threatening regional power.’ [914] This process has been enhanced by the stark contrast over the last decade between China ’s whole-hearted embrace of multilateralism and the United States ’ preoccupation with the Middle East combined with its shift towards unilateralism during the Bush administration. China’s overseas aid has risen from around $260 million in 1993 to more than $1.5 billion in 2004 at a time when the US has been reducing its own; as a result, China’s aid to the Philippines is now four times that of the US, double what the US gives to Indonesia, and far outstrips American aid to Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. [915] China is funding many high-profile projects, including a new presidential palace and foreign ministry building in East Timor and a parliament building in Cambodia. [916] It finances the training of Cambodian and Laotian officials in China as well as receiving a growing number of politicians and dignitaries from the region in China on visitor programmes. [917] It has opened its doors to foreign students, with over 60,000 from East Asia studying for advanced degrees in Chinese universities in 2003-4. [918] There is a growing thirst across the region to learn Mandarin, while Chinese tourists are becoming an increasingly common sight in South-East Asia, greatly outnumbering those from Japan.
One of the consequences of China ’s growing economic importance has been that the great majority of countries in the region have become more closely aligned with it. There are only two exceptions to this: Taiwan, at least until recently, and Japan. Even Singapore and the Philippines, two traditionally close allies of the United States, have moved much closer to China. Rather than countries fearing the rise of China and, as a result, choosing to move closer to the United States, the opposite has happened. Nor has there been any sign of an arms race in the region. A senior Singaporean diplomat confidentially offered the view in 2004 that:
The balance of influence is shifting against the United States. In the last decade the Chinese have not done anything wrong in South-East Asia. The Japanese have not done anything right, and the US has been indifferent. So already Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and other states are defining their national interest as ‘Finlandization’ with respect to China. The US will never be shut out of South-East Asia completely, but there is less room for it now than in the past fifty years. [919]
As the accompanying figures suggest, attitudes in the region have grown more favourable towards China, compared with those towards the US, while China is generally seen as emerging as the new power centre in the region and as likely to become the most important economic partner of most countries. To illustrate the reconfiguration of power in East Asia towards China, I will look at three very different examples, namely Myanmar, Malaysia and South Korea; and then at the remarkable way in which Australia is being drawn into China ’s orbit.
