Should Asian Countries Look at China as a Friend or a Foe?

The relationship between ASEAN and China has a long history. There are many contacts and agreements that both China and ASEAN have signed in order to improve their relationship. We always hear news about China-ASEAN movement in the relations. The question that is China a friend or a foe of ASEAN countries is being asked in many area. Some people think that China and ASEAN are in a good relation only in term of economic. While some people argue that ASEAN has disadvantage to China. This essay will focus on the reason why ASEAN should look at China more as a foe than as a friend. It discusses on economic, environmental and political reasons.

In order to understand clearly about the relationship between China and ASEAN countries, some informations about its background are required. ASEAN or the association of Southeast Asian nations was established on 8 August 1967 in Thailand. There are 10 countries joined together which can be classified by the amount of income of the country. Singapore and Brunei are high-income country. The middle-income countries are Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Philippines. The rest are Vietnam, Burma, Cambodia and Laos, which are low-income countries. Apart from ASEAN, China, a communist nation in East Asia, is the world’s most populous country with 1.38 billion of population. China population growth rate is 0.45 percents (factbook, 2015). In term of economic, China is the second world largest economy with the GDP of 17.6 trillion dollar. The GDP real growth rate is 7.4 percents. China has border countries including ASEAN members, which are Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos. Also, China and ASEAN are bonded by Mekong River known as the Lancang in China. The Mekong river crosses through Qinghai, Tibet and Yunnan before flowing into Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

China economic power can be a source of concern and mistrust. China and ASEAN members are all developing countries. China has a similar structure of economic development as ASEAN with the upgrading of their industrial structure and also has similar comparative advantages in some sectors, especially in textile and electronic products (Wen, 2007). For this reason, both of them are facing more competition from each other by exporting similar products in the same market. According to the statistics of a commodity structure of China and ASEAN countries, China exports manufactured goods is roughly same number of Philippines and Cambodia at approximately 90 percents and the manufactured goods exports in Thailand and Indonesia are shared by China at 60.82 and 65.85 percents in 1999-2001 (UNCTAD, 2005). Additionally, the statistics of US imports from ASEAN-5 and China also indicate that the amounts of exports of ASEAN to US market decreased while China increased from 2000 to 2004. In 2001, ASEAN-5 loss around 30 billions of US dollar in US exports (Liu, 2007). Consequently, the ASEAN economies are affected because a large proportion of China’s exports production produce the similar goods and they lose lot of money from competing with China. If China and ASEAN cannot promote regional integration and accelerate the regional production network, the similarity in export structures would hinder the bilateral trade relations more.

Secondly, China is an environmental threat for ASEAN members which is mostly in the Mekong sub-region. China has built 7 hydropower dams on the upper Mekong River or the Lancang. These issues have been concerned from the Lower Mekong communities on how these dams will impact their lives and livelihoods. Mya Than, an associate senior research at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), said that “the construction of dams in Yunnan’s part of Mekong might become a hot potato in the relationship between China and ASEAN countries due to possible environmental impacts” . It is estimated that 80-90 percent of the Mekong water is used for agriculture from which is around 75 percent of the population of the Lower Mekong river derive their income (Than, 2007) Millions of villagers who live along the Mekong River grow vegetables in riverbank gardens and their livelihoods will be significantly impacted if they lose the gardens. Besides, mainstream dams would devastate fisheries, If planned mainstream dams are built, the likely loss in fish capture could be over 600,000 tonnes fish per year which is equal two years of livestock production of Cambodia and Laos. It has direct effect on inland fisheries in the lower Mekong basin that produce up to 2.5 million tons of fish per year which is worth around 4.2 billion of US dollars (World Rivers Review, 2014). Therefore, The dams that were built and are being built has significant impact on livelihood of ASEAN members.

Not only economic and environmental reasons but also political reason should be taken into accounts. The territorial disputes has an affect the relationship between China and ASEAN. To clarify this point further,