Geoffrey Cain 28 Oct 2008World Politics Review
PHON Penh, Cambodia -- In search of raw materials, China has increasingly used development assistance to court Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, three countries "forgotten" since the Vietnam War. The U.S., too, has stepped up its activities in the region since the Sept. 11 attacks, although its efforts have focused more on counterterrorism cooperation than on directly addressing the growing Chinese influence. But as Southeast Asia increasingly becomes the object of the two powers' attention, some in the region are expressing discomfort with their growing rivalry.
A January 2008 report *[http://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34310.pdf] * by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) noted that China outpaced the U.S. in assistance to lesser developed Southeast Asian countries last year. Cambodia, for example, received $689 million from China in 2007, along with pledges of $1 billion in loans in 2008 for two dam projects to power the electricity-starved countryside. That's far above the U.S.'s total assistance of $55 million in 2007, mostly disbursed through non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
The effect of China's no-strings-attached approach to development aid is noticeable. Throughout the 1990s, when aid was more clearly dominated by Western donors and Japan, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen worked through multilateral aid agencies and the United Nations. Now, he publicly blasts such organizations, threatening to close the offices of the UN human rights agency after taking offense at comments made by its recently resigned representative, Yash Ghai, and banning the NGO Global Witness in 2007 for publishing a report critical of his family's involvement in illegal logging. Currently facing a $1 billion shortfall in development funds from a lagging economy, Sen met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Oct. 24 at the Asia-Europe summit and was promised $280 million in loans for infrastructure.
Laos has seen similar assistance from China in the form of transportation infrastructure and hydropower projects valued at $178 million and economic cooperation at $45 million in 2006, a stark contrast to the U.S.'s $4.5 million in aid between 2005 and 2007. China has also engaged the country with youth scholarship programs to study in Beijing and has been modernizing the Laotian military, despite Laos Prime Minister Choummaly Sayasone's policy of maintaining closer ties with Vietnam. The effort could pay dividends by increasing Chinese influence among the country's next generation of leaders, once those brought up under Vietnam's revolutionary fervor pass on.
More controversially, Burma has also received pledges of around $5 billion in loans, equipment, and investment from China since the ruling military junta took power in 1988, the CRS report added. The U.S.'s 2007 aid to Burma at $12 million was intended only for refugee programs along the Thai-Burma border, a paltry sum, perhaps, but a more justifiable cause. The Chinese aid to Burma keeps the military junta afloat, commentators note, and many are pessimistic about Beijing's future willingness to confront the junta on its repressive policies, given China's competition with India for a major natural gas pipeline in Burma.
Perhaps more problematic than China's "no-strings-attached" approach to domestic affairs, however, is that it does attach strings to recipients' positions on foreign policy issues, sometimes at the expense of U.S. interests. Cambodia, Laos, and Burma have all toed the line on Beijing's "one China" policy to appease the country's aid regimen, while Beijing reportedly halted $200 million in aid to Vietnam in 2006 after Vietnam invited Taiwan to attend that year's APEC summit in Hanoi, according to the Singapore-based Straits Times. Some Chinese aid resumed after the July and August floods.
Nevertheless, U.S. and Chinese interests in Southeast Asia are not locked in a "zero sum" competition. The region's proximity to Japan, India, and Australia makes it a historically contested sphere of influence among powers. What's more, leaders from Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos have repeatedly expressed that they do not wish to choose between the U.S. and China. And a June report* [http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=260] *by the Pew Global Attitudes Project showed that public opinion views unilateral regional policies -- of both China and the U.S. -- with increasing concern.
Both Beijing and Washington have previously worked alongside Japan and Australia, two of Southeast Asia's largest donors, in multilateral aid projects. More multilateral cooperation between donors might help harmonize Chinese and American regional agendas. China's first pledge of $91.5 million in 2007 through the multilateral Consultative Group, a consortium of countries and institutions that meets annually to pledge aid to Cambodia , was a start. But other ASEAN countries have not yet seen such coordination.
The U.S. also needs to reaffirm and reposture its relations with ASEAN countries, moving beyond what many Southeast Asians fear is marginal and fleeting interest in the region's security issues. A recent report by the Stanley Foundation *[http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/resources.cfm?id=286]* advises the next administration to regularly send diplomats to annual ASEAN meetings (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice missed several), and to strengthen multilateral coordination on human rights and security problems.
U.S. policymakers can't expect to win hearts and minds in Southeast Asia if U.S. diplomats are consistently outdone by their Chinese counterparts. And in response to what author Joseph Kurlantzick* *calls China's "charm offensive" in Southeast Asia, the U.S. must not only make aid to the region a priority, but must do so in a cooperative and dependable manner.
Geoffrey Cain is a Phnom Penh-based contributor to the Far Eastern Economic Review and Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), a U.N.-run news wire service.
Photo: President Bush with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, September 2007. White House photo by Chris Greenberg.
A January 2008 report *[http://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34310.pdf] * by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) noted that China outpaced the U.S. in assistance to lesser developed Southeast Asian countries last year. Cambodia, for example, received $689 million from China in 2007, along with pledges of $1 billion in loans in 2008 for two dam projects to power the electricity-starved countryside. That's far above the U.S.'s total assistance of $55 million in 2007, mostly disbursed through non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
The effect of China's no-strings-attached approach to development aid is noticeable. Throughout the 1990s, when aid was more clearly dominated by Western donors and Japan, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen worked through multilateral aid agencies and the United Nations. Now, he publicly blasts such organizations, threatening to close the offices of the UN human rights agency after taking offense at comments made by its recently resigned representative, Yash Ghai, and banning the NGO Global Witness in 2007 for publishing a report critical of his family's involvement in illegal logging. Currently facing a $1 billion shortfall in development funds from a lagging economy, Sen met with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Oct. 24 at the Asia-Europe summit and was promised $280 million in loans for infrastructure.
Laos has seen similar assistance from China in the form of transportation infrastructure and hydropower projects valued at $178 million and economic cooperation at $45 million in 2006, a stark contrast to the U.S.'s $4.5 million in aid between 2005 and 2007. China has also engaged the country with youth scholarship programs to study in Beijing and has been modernizing the Laotian military, despite Laos Prime Minister Choummaly Sayasone's policy of maintaining closer ties with Vietnam. The effort could pay dividends by increasing Chinese influence among the country's next generation of leaders, once those brought up under Vietnam's revolutionary fervor pass on.
More controversially, Burma has also received pledges of around $5 billion in loans, equipment, and investment from China since the ruling military junta took power in 1988, the CRS report added. The U.S.'s 2007 aid to Burma at $12 million was intended only for refugee programs along the Thai-Burma border, a paltry sum, perhaps, but a more justifiable cause. The Chinese aid to Burma keeps the military junta afloat, commentators note, and many are pessimistic about Beijing's future willingness to confront the junta on its repressive policies, given China's competition with India for a major natural gas pipeline in Burma.
Perhaps more problematic than China's "no-strings-attached" approach to domestic affairs, however, is that it does attach strings to recipients' positions on foreign policy issues, sometimes at the expense of U.S. interests. Cambodia, Laos, and Burma have all toed the line on Beijing's "one China" policy to appease the country's aid regimen, while Beijing reportedly halted $200 million in aid to Vietnam in 2006 after Vietnam invited Taiwan to attend that year's APEC summit in Hanoi, according to the Singapore-based Straits Times. Some Chinese aid resumed after the July and August floods.
Nevertheless, U.S. and Chinese interests in Southeast Asia are not locked in a "zero sum" competition. The region's proximity to Japan, India, and Australia makes it a historically contested sphere of influence among powers. What's more, leaders from Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos have repeatedly expressed that they do not wish to choose between the U.S. and China. And a June report* [http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=260] *by the Pew Global Attitudes Project showed that public opinion views unilateral regional policies -- of both China and the U.S. -- with increasing concern.
Both Beijing and Washington have previously worked alongside Japan and Australia, two of Southeast Asia's largest donors, in multilateral aid projects. More multilateral cooperation between donors might help harmonize Chinese and American regional agendas. China's first pledge of $91.5 million in 2007 through the multilateral Consultative Group, a consortium of countries and institutions that meets annually to pledge aid to Cambodia , was a start. But other ASEAN countries have not yet seen such coordination.
The U.S. also needs to reaffirm and reposture its relations with ASEAN countries, moving beyond what many Southeast Asians fear is marginal and fleeting interest in the region's security issues. A recent report by the Stanley Foundation *[http://www.stanleyfoundation.org/resources.cfm?id=286]* advises the next administration to regularly send diplomats to annual ASEAN meetings (Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice missed several), and to strengthen multilateral coordination on human rights and security problems.
U.S. policymakers can't expect to win hearts and minds in Southeast Asia if U.S. diplomats are consistently outdone by their Chinese counterparts. And in response to what author Joseph Kurlantzick* *calls China's "charm offensive" in Southeast Asia, the U.S. must not only make aid to the region a priority, but must do so in a cooperative and dependable manner.
Geoffrey Cain is a Phnom Penh-based contributor to the Far Eastern Economic Review and Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), a U.N.-run news wire service.
Photo: President Bush with leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, September 2007. White House photo by Chris Greenberg.
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