Opinion | Gangsters, tourists and farmers of corn: how China’s Southeast Asia ties can be hurt by those beyond Beijing’s control
- China tends to be portrayed, in academia and the media, as a great power with hegemonic designs for its Southeast Asian neighbours
- Yet the effect of Chinese non-state actors’ daily encounters with local communities in the region deserves equal attention, says Enze Han
The influence that an increasingly globalised China exerts in Southeast Asia is much more complex than one would expect from a typical great power in the West – particularly given the long history of Chinese emigration to the region during times of internal turmoil and poverty.
Even in the case of Chinese foreign aid, oftentimes it is not uniform or coordinated from a central authority, but rather driven and implemented by regional and local interests, including both state-owned as well as private and hybrid companies linked predominantly to subnational governments that seek business opportunities by lobbying the Chinese state.
China is transitioning from being the world’s factory to becoming a global consumer market, with workers who used to sit at the bottom of the global capitalist value chain now consumers in their own right. Yet many mainland Chinese continue to emigrate, facing stereotypes of being poor, cheap and vulgar that persist despite their improved economic conditions and consumption power.
China’s government has also encouraged domestic enterprises to go abroad through its zouchuqu (Going Out) strategy, further spurring encounters between Chinese non-state actors and their Southeast Asian counterparts, as the following three examples show:
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