China must step up economic fight with US in key Asean battlefield, prominent political economist Zheng Yongnian says

China must cement closer ties with its Southeast Asian neighbours, with the market of over 600 million inhabitants having turned into a key battlefield to build regional influence and economic supremacy over the United States, according to a prominent political economist.

Zheng Yongnian, who has been advising Beijing’s policymakers after two decades of research on China’s rise on the global stage, said the world’s second-largest economy needs to unilaterally open up more to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to bring them within China’s economic gravity amid the escalating US rivalry.

“Asean has actually become a main area between China and the US to fight for,” said Zheng, who is the president of the Institute for International Affairs, Qianhai, a think tank based in Shenzhen, in a transcript of a speech he made in Kunming, Yunnan province, on August 18 that was released on Tuesday.

The world’s two largest economies have been involved in a tit-for-tat tariff war since 2018, and tensions have spilled over into technology, with Washington restricting the access of hundreds of Chinese companies to American technology, parts and its market.

Meanwhile, the 10-member Asean bloc – which is made up of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam – has surpassed the US and European Union to become China’s top trading partner.

Zheng called on Beijing to start by opening its borders to Laos and making better use of the railway link between the two countries, then use it as a model to lure more Southeast Asian countries through economic benefits.