Assessing China's influence on Southeast Asia: The Taiwan issue

It is widely known that China's influence on Southeast Asia has been growing rapidly since the Asian financial crisis of 1997. However, determining the true dimensions of China's influence in this region is still controversial. It seems quite conspicuous that the growing economic relations between China and the region give China more bargaining power, due to the expanding role of the bilateral trade and China's foreign aid in promoting the regional economic growth. However, this does not give us a clear picture of how China has been able to exercise its influence on the behavior of the states in the region for its own interests. Therefore, this paper tries to assess China's influence on Southeast Asia by analyzing the specific case of Taiwan. Recently, China's rising influence has significantly affected Southeast Asia's relations with Taiwan. Southeast Asian states are paying more attention to the cross-Strait relations when considering attempting to improve relations with Taiwan. This research defines "influence" as the capability of state A to affect the behavior of state B, either directly or indirectly, to comply with state A's policy interests. If the diplomatic behavior of state B changes accordingly due to the action, then it can be said that state A has illustrated its influence over state B. By studying the Taiwan issue, this paper reveals that China has been quite successful in exercising its influence on Southeast Asian states to comply with China's policy toward Taiwan.