China’s “good neighbor” policy is under unprecedented pressure; indeed, it is at its nadir since the end of the Cold War. One after another, frictions with neighboring countries have arisen recently.
From territorial disputes with Vietnam and the Philippines in the South China Sea, to tensions with Myanmar and Thailand, relationships that were sound, if not always friendly, have now soured. Myanmar’s decision to shelve the Chinese-backed Myitsone Dam project shocked Beijing. Likewise, the killing of 13 Chinese crewmen on a boat on the Mekong River last month served as a stark reminder that China’s peaceful southern land border, which has been untroubled for nearly 20 years, today resembles the most hostile sort of neighborhood.
China’s people and government are especially dismayed by the Mekong killings, which seemed to demonstrate, once again, the government’s inability to protect its citizens from being murdered abroad, despite the country’s newfound global status. As a result, two compelling questions have arisen: Why do China’s neighbors choose to neglect its interests? And why, despite China’s rise, does Beijing seem increasingly unable to secure Chinese lives and commercial interests abroad?
Chinese anxiety about these questions informs the atmosphere shaping the country’s policy. With former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s fall from power, Chinese companies could lose investments worth roughly US$20 billion, which Libya’s new government has implied are unlikely to be recovered. Many Chinese were disquieted by their government’s decision to evacuate its citizens from Libya and would have preferred a bolder effort to protect the countries’ commercial assets there.
Similarly, the Chinese government’s later, and quite sudden, about-face in recognizing the rebel Transitional National Council as Libya’s government aroused much sneering Within China. After all, Beijing spent valuable political capital to oppose NATO’s airstrikes at the beginning of the intervention, only to end up backing the forces that NATO helped bring to power. This was China’s utilitarian, commercially driven diplomacy at its most transparently hollow.
For most Chinese, Libya is a far-away country not subject to China’s limited capacity to project power, so the emphasis on restoring Chinese commercial interests is accepted reluctantly, if not completely understood. However, Myanmar and the other Mekong River countries are supposed to be the “good neighbors,” and within reach of Chinese power, so public anger over threats to the country’s interests in these places is intense.
Those interests include a new oil pipeline linking Myanmar to Kunming, the provincial capital of Yunnan Province. China is also working on “connectivity” projects — namely, a rail and highway network — aimed at boosting economic and social ties between China and ASEAN members.
The Myitsone and Mekong incidents have now cast a shadow over these projects, fueling fear of a chain reaction that could wreck Beijing’s two-decade-long effort to achieve deeper regional integration.
Obviously, Myanmar’s new government does not want to aggravate sentiment in its already-unstable border areas, where rebel groups were using the dam project to rally new supporters. The new government’s effort to share power with political forces in Myanmar’s volatile regions and thus weaken local warlords, clearly contributed to the decision to halt construction.
RSS