Saturday, August 09, 2014

China's Expansionism

 Eight Asian countries have expressed grave concern over the possibility of inter-state war between Beijing on one hand, and other claimant states in the South and East China Seas on the other. Obama’s administration has promised to strengthen bilateral strategic-security ties with its Asian partners. Japan, Philippines,  and Malaysia are ramping up their defence spending, while tightening strategic ties with the US. Vietnam also pushed for stronger strategic ties with Washington, hoping to encourage the Obama administration to pressure Beijing against further provocations.

About 93 percent of Filipinos said that they were "very concerned" with the ongoing disputes in the Western Pacific, 85 percent in Japan, 84 percent in Vietnam, and 83 percent in South Korea. In China, over 60 percent of the survey respondents expressed similar concerns over the prospects of an armed conflict with neighboring states. Locked in bitter disputes with China, citizens of Japan, Vietnam, and the Philippines considered China as the biggest threat to their national security.

China and Vietnam have become increasingly economically interdependent, with Beijing serving as Hanoi's leading trading partner and a key source of investments in manufacturing and infrastructure development. Amid rising labour costs in China's traditional manufacturing hubs, Vietnam has emerged as a favourite alternative destination for labour-intensive manufacturing investments. Growing economic interdependence, however, has failed to ameliorate deepening tensions over bilateral maritime disputes. Both Chinese and Vietnamese people harbor strong nationalist feelings vis-a-vis their countries' maritime claims.

By launching multi-billion developments agencies such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the New Development Bank, China is intent on deepening its leverage over neighbouring countries.

From here

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Anger over Vietnam's handling of a territorial dispute with China has prompted a group of senior communist party members to call on the government to jettison communism for democracy and "get out of China's orbit." Sixty-one prominent members of Vietnam's Communist Party, including a former ambassador to Beijing, urged Vietnam's leadership in an open letter to change its political system, "develop a truly democratic, law-abiding state," allow for greater freedom of political speech and "escape" from its reliance on China. "The Party needs to get rid of Marxism-Leninism and get out of China's orbit," Chu Hao, former vice minister of science and technology and one of the letter's three co-authors, said in a phone interview. "It is very high time for the party to make a thorough transformation."

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