Rising Sino-Japanese competition: perspectives from South-East Asian elites

ABSTRACT

One of the biggest challenges for the East Asian region today is the Sino-Japanese relationship. Starting with the fishing trawler incident in September 2010, followed by Japan's nationalisation of the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, this relationship is experiencing an escalation of tensions in most, if not all, areas of the bilateral relationship. In response to the intensifying competition, China and Japan have elevated the importance of South-East Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in their foreign policy strategies. Focusing on how elites from five South-East Asian states—Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Vietnam—perceive the engagement of China and Japan with the region, this article poses two questions: (1) How do South-East Asian elites view the Sino-Japanese competition? and (2) How do South-East Asian elites view the role of ASEAN in managing the competition? The analysis here concludes that while some South-East Asian elites see opportunities in the Sino-Japanese competition, they nevertheless do not perceive it as an issue of critical significance. Instead, the concern lies generally with major-power dynamics, and particularly with Sino-US relations. ASEAN is viewed to lack the ability to manage the negative consequences of the Sino-Japanese competition, although its external balancing function has perceptibly helped to restrain any escalation of major-power tensions.

KEYWORDS:

• ASEAN
• China
• Japan
• Sino-Japanese competition
• South-East Asia

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express appreciation to the interviewees for sharing their valuable insights and views on the topics.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. China was dominant in East Asia before the nineteenth century and Japan rose to dominance following the Meiji Restoration in 1868 (see Calder 2006).

2. In this article, South-East Asia is referred to as the geographical region, and ASEAN as the institution that represents the South-East Asian region.

3. This value-based diplomacy was first officially announced by former foreign minister, Aso Taro, in 2006, and it has been reinforced by the Abe administration since 2012 (see MOFA 2006; Sohn 2010).

4. Chung (2013, 813–814) also outlined other ways in which China and Japan clashed in relation to East Asian multilateralism. When Beijing offered to host the second EAS, Japan vetoed it. When Japan proposed to co-chair the first EAS with Malaysia, China opposed it.