Asean's embrace of U.S. riles china
Regional neighbours, who look to Beijing for economic support but still harbour mistrust over mainland's rising might, still seek US security

Minnie Chan

The United States' "return to Asia" has resulted in a new dynamic in the region, with many Southeast Asian countries looking to China when they need economic support, but turning to the US for security protection, a forum on international relations heard in Hong Kong yesterday.

China has tried to boost economic ties with its Asian neighbours through the Association of Southeast Asian Nations framework over the past two decades to build up mutual trust on economic and security issues, said Yang Jiemian, president of the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. But Beijing now realised it was almost an entirely fruitless strategy, Yang told the Hong Kong Forum on Asia, held at the Foreign Ministry's local office.

Yang said the change in dynamic was the result of Asian countries' concerns over the rise of China and territorial disputes in the South China Sea, coupled with the United States stepping up engagement in the region.

"Actually, the US has never left Asia," Yang said. "It is just reinforcing its presence now ? and its participation has made the [Asean] framework much more complicated and more uncertain because the US is so big, very powerful, and it always has a lot of ideas."

For instance, US President Barack Obama proposed a Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation summit in Hawaii this month.

Yang's views were backed by Ma Mingqiang , secretary general of the Asean-China Centre, Xu Dunxin , a former ambassador to Japan, and several other diplomacy specialists at the forum. "It's because the Asean countries fear they will be assimilated by China amid China's rise," Ma said. Beijing's failure to promote China and its cultural values to Asian neighbours should be blamed for such mistrust. "In the past, our country just focused on enhancing relations with overseas Chinese in the Asean countries, but ignored our ties with the majority of the people."

However, China's ambassador to Asean, Tong Xiaoling , played down the concerns. She said she was optimistic about relations with Asean because of shared economic and security interests with China.

Dr Richard Hu, director of international relations at the University of Hong Kong, said the weak ties between China and Asean members reflected traditional Asian culture. "The game rules in Asean are so different from those in Western countries, with everyone in Southeast Asia qualifying for membership, while in Europe or in the US you should meet several requirements before joining a club," Hu said.

He drew an analogy to how marriage was viewed differently in the two civilisations. "In Asia, our cultures encourage couples to get married first and then learn how to fall in love, but it is the opposite way in Western culture."

The analogy was picked up by Professor Li Xiangyang, director of the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, who said a vulnerable marriage could be broken up by a third party. "Now, obviously, the third party is the US," Li said.