Multilateralism in China´ s ASEAN Policy: Its Evolution, Characteristics, and Aspiration

Abstract

Introduction The end of the Cold War and the settlement of the Cambodian conflict opened a new chapter in the development of ASEAN-China relations. Four key characteristics distinguish ASEAN-China ties in the post-Cold War era from that of the preceding period. The first feature is the disappearance of the ideological barriers that eventually paved the way for the restoration or establishment of diplomatic ties between China and all ASEAN states by 1991. The second characteristic is the importance of economic links that have created both convergent and divergent interests for the two sides. The third feature is the salience of the Spratly territorial disputes in shaping the ASEAN-China interactions. The final--equally important but less noted feature--is the gradual emergence of multilateralism as a mode of diplomatic interaction between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the ASEAN countries. Throughout the Cold War period, China's interactions with ASEAN states were conducted solely on a bilateral basis. No institutionalized linkage was formally forged between China and the regional organization. Viewed in this light, the attendance by the then Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen at the opening session of the 24th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on July 1991 as a guest of Malaysia was an important event for Sino-ASEAN relations. This was followed by China's presence in the ASEAN meeting in its capacity as the group's consultative partner in 1992, as well as its attendance at the inaugural meeting of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1994. Together, these events marked the beginning of the multilateral process between China and the ASEAN states. (1) It must be noted that Beijing's move to involve itself in ASEAN activities since the early 1990s was part of the country's good-neighbourliness policy [mulin zhengce] that aimed at strengthening its ties with the neighbouring countries in the wake of the Tiananmen Incident in 1989, rather than a flesh orientation in the conduct of Chinese foreign policy. Bilateralism remained the principal thrust of China's policy towards Southeast Asian countries. However, as a range of multi-level and multi-sector cooperation mechanisms developed one after another largely by ASEAN's initiative throughout the 1990s-notably but not exhaustively, the creations of ARF in 1994, the China-ASEAN senior official political consultation in 1995, as well as the ASEAN-China and ASEAN Plus Three (APT, i.e. ASEAN plus China, Japan and Korea) Summits in 1997--China's increasingly active involvement in these multilateral forums has considerably shaped the dynamics of its ASEAN policy. At the turn of the new century, multilateral diplomacy has become an important component of China's ASEAN policy in the eyes of many analysts (Thayer 2001; Roy 2002). While China's involvement in these regional multilateral institutions has not been an overlooked phenomenon, it is nonetheless an understudied field of inquiry. To date, there is no major scholarly work that attempts to examine the dynamics of China's participation in these regional multilateral institutions in a systematic manner. Although there are a number of important writings on China's involvement in the ARF (Foot 1998; Johnston 1999 and 2003; Pan 1999), studies on China's participation in the APT and the ASEAN-China cooperation (also known as the ASEAN-China dialogue, hereafter ACC) remain sparse in the literature. (2) This is surprising, considering that China's ASEAN policy is not only implemented through and affected by its participation in the ARF, but also involves other regional institutions particularly ACC and APT. Moreover, the fact that from the mid-1990s until early 2003 China's policy towards these three institutions had been managed by the same division within the Chinese Foreign Ministry's apparatus (namely the Division for Regional Cooperation of the Asian Department), strongly reflects the intertwined nature of these institutions for Chinese policymakers. …

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