Small and Medium Sized States’ Responses to Rising China:Comparing Cambodia, Laos and Thailand

Abstract

China’s meteoric rise has produced a series of challenges for states around its periphery. In Southeast Asia, small and medium sized states are exposed to different challenges accompanying China’s rise, the nature of which depend on their geographical location, historical relations with China, and their contemporary political and economic interdependence with China. While maritime Southeast Asian states view China’s approach to the South China Sea dispute cautiously, mainland Southeast Asian states have no major territorial disputes with China and remain more optimistic about its regional role. Whether these states are really moving into China’s sphere of influence is an open question, but how they are reacting is important because they will likely shape the dynamics of regionalism in Asia for some time to come. They will also be important in shaping the nature of the US-China relationship in Asia, which will in turn have global implications. This thesis investigates the strategies being adopted by small and medium sized states in Southeast Asia ─ Cambodia, Laos and Thailand ─ toward rising China and the reasons why they are adopting it. It will be argued that these three states are neither forming alliances with other states to balance China’s influence, nor are they fully bandwagoning with China. Although China’s economic and political rise is furnishing them with tangible economic benefits for their development, it is unlikely these states will terminate their alliances with the U.S. (in Thailand’s case), or Vietnam (in the case of Cambodia, and Laos). Instead, they will continue to hedge on China.