In the colonial era in Southeast Asia extending from the 15th to the late 20th century, the Western powers, (including America in the late 19th century) competed for, occupied and governed Southeast Asia. The former colonial masters continued to impose economic, political, cultural and other pressures to control or influence their former colonies. Now, just as they have finally begun to throw off their lingering colonial shackles, a new neocolonial era is in the offing, more conceptual than physical. This time the struggle for domination of the region is between the West (led by the U.S). and China, and it is for ideational, commercial, technological, and maritime spheres of influence – – as well as access for strategic bases and ‘places’. Nevertheless, the current contest still involves coercion that clearly challenges Southeast Asian countries’ independence and sovereignty. In both eras they were – and are –viewed as pawns in a great power contest.
The world has changed dramatically since the previous colonial and neocolonial periods. WW II has come and gone. The former colonies have won their independence and are fervently defending it. However, they continue to struggle with inherited problems created by colonially imposed affiliations, national borders, territorial disputes and the results of mass trafficking of human labor.
The Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union that split and damaged Southeast Asia has ended. China has risen and is challenging the victor—the U.S. and the West– and the post WW II liberal international order that the U.S. helped build and now leads –to its asymmetric benefit.
In this new neocolonial era, the methods of “colonialism” may have changed— but not the fundamental intent of subjugating these nations to their national interest. Now instead of physical conquering and occupation, China and the U.S. are trying to impose their respective economic and ideational norms and values. This is manifested in the contest between China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the US’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific Initiative (FOIP) and its spawn, the Quad.
According to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo China’s Initiative is an attempt to create “vassal states [and] a tyrannical regime all around the world for global hegemony .” https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/entire-world-beginning-to-unite-against-china-says-mike-pompeo/articleshow/77886285.cms China views the FOIP initiative as an attempt to impose its version of an international order on it and the region, and thereby to constrain its rightful rise to dominate at least the region.
Kiron Skinner, a former Director of Policy and Planning in the US State Department said China and the U.S. “seek adherence to their set of values. This is a fight with a really different civilization and a different ideology.” https://unherd.com/2019/05/what-liberals-get-wrong-about-the-chinese-threat/ The US Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe has called China the “greatest threat to America today and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom worldwide since World War II.” https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-intelligence-china/trump-spy-chief-labels-china-biggest-threat-to-freedom-since-world-war-two-idUSKBN28D36A While many might dispute these iconoclastic assertions, they do indicate the view deep within the upper reaches of the US government foreign policy apparatus.
They are deeply worried that China is proving that for itself and perhaps other developing countries, its system is superior in the eyes of its people – and observers. Indeed, at base is a clash of political systems—‘efficient’ authoritarian communism versus ‘inefficient’ democratic capitalism- and their underlying values. Although the U.S. hoped that China’s values and political system would become more like its own, that is now recognized as unlikely and probably always was. This has shaken the U.S. establishment to the core because it challenges the fundamental assumption that all the world wanted to—and would—become like it. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/26/mcdonalds-peace-nagornokarabakh-friedman/ This clash of fundamental values and norms will not change in the foreseeable future. Indeed, China and the U.S. will continue to struggle for the political allegiance and support of Southeast Asian countries and will continue to pressure them to side with their system.
Some Southeast Asian have welcomed the contest and tried to hedge and thus benefit from the largess of both –China’s economic assistance and the US security blanket. But this is proving to be an increasingly dangerous game as the two competitors crank up the pressure to choose sides. If there is resistance by Southeast Asian countries to the ‘entreaties’ of the contesting powers, neither is beyond angry threats, military intimidation and formal or informal sanctions to get their way.A particular concern is that the intensifying competition for influence and military dominance in the region could spill over into their domestic politics with the U.S. and China each supporting its supporters and opposing its opponents. This happened during the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union and it could happen again.
Indeed, this great power contest could be a disaster for Southeast Asia. These countries are struggling to maintain their strategic autonomy and would like to follow great power wishes only when their interests align. But they cannot resist such pressures alone. They need to do so in unison. However, cohesion is in jeopardy. As outspoken Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte warns “The South China Sea issue is ASEAN’s strategic challenge. How we deal with this matter lays bare our strengths and weaknesses as a community.” https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/11/12/Duterte-South-China-Sea-ASEAN-Summit-act-with-haste.html
The Biden administration will be faced with fundamental choices and opportunities regarding China. The Trump administration has made the world—and Southeast Asia– wonder if the U.S. is really interested in the fate of others besides itself. They wonder if it is willing to compromise to avoid confrontation and the pain and suffering that will bring to the rest of the world—and to Southeast Asia in particular. Of course the Biden administration will inherit the anti-China bias in D.C. That is in part because the Trump administration has done so much damage the trust between the two countries- – particularly with its nasty name calling. But it is also because of the group-think that now consumes the US body politic. An administration with guts and version could overcome this.
But under these present circumstances the best that Biden can probably do in, and for Southeast Asia is to “show up but not to speak up” ,that is cease using the ASEAN forums to continuously attack China and its leadership. https://asiatimes.com/2020/11/us-china-detente-hopes-rising-in-se-asia/ “Engaged indifference “ would be better for all concerned.
The colliding ambitions of China and the U.S. suggest the inevitability of a fundamental clash. And the door to the room for compromise is closing. China is in an inexorable upward trajectory of increasing power not unlike America was in its post-colonial days. The U.S. is still ahead and on top. It should compromise while it can still significantly influence the terms thereof– rather than fight the inevitable.
The ‘international order must at least partially accommodate China’s interests. Of course there will be stresses and strains. But confrontation is the easy way out of this dilemma. The harder but better way out for all concerned is for the U.S. to determine and negotiate where, when, and how to compromise on what. History shows the U.S. cannot be top dog forever. Negotiating will provide an extension of its reign and the possibility of a ‘soft’ landing.
A shorter version of this piece first appeared in the South China Morning Post. https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3114177/us-china-relations-southeast-asia-cannot-afford-another-neocolonial
Mark J. Valencia is an internationally known maritime policy analyst focused on Asia and currently Adjunct Senior Scholar at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Haikou, China
Mark J. Valencia is an internationally known maritime policy analyst focused on Asia and currently Adjunct Senior Scholar at the National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Haikou, China. He is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Huayang Institute for Maritime Cooperation and Ocean Governance, Sanya , China.
Comments
21 responses to “The New ‘Neocolonialism’ in Southeast Asia”
As an Australian i feel so proud this morning that our boof head PM has been given a gong by the most corrupt, dishonest and certifiably insane leader in post WWII history. Can it get any worse?
Yes, PM ScoMo might be primed to receive the British highest honour, the Victoria Cross, for keeping Australia’s doors and windows wide open to receive those fleeing England whilst the mutant virus 70 times more infectious are, according to the UK Health Minister, raging “out of control”.
Meanwhile, European countries, Singapore, Hong Kong has pulled their shuttles down on travels from England.
An excellent piece of insight into what is going on. I have been seeing it as a resurgence of imperialist countries as well – neo-imperialism – but in the case of the US, a country that came to imperialism later than say Britain and Europe, it actually hasn’t stopped from its initiation and it is still going on today.
Abraham Lincoln was dead against America becoming an imperialist country, he did not like colonialism and slavery, but later in the same 19th century, president William McKinley, then followed by Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft in the early 1900s, ensconced imperialism into the American mind as the way forward. I understand that even Henry Wallace who was vice president during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s time, was also against US imperialism, but he was destroyed in order to make way for Truman after Roosevelt died. That move allowed for the atomic bombs to be dropped on Japan and a stronger role for the US as the world’s self-appointed policeman.
The Spanish-American war, followed by the annexation of Hawaii and the Philippines, started off more than 120 years of US imperialism, and post WWII it expanded into hundreds of US bases distributed world-wide. Interference using the CIA has also expanded the US’s reach, and it is done by overriding many countries’ political right to choosing their own governance, and walking all over their sovereignty to make such countries malleable to US interests. The tale of South and Central America is full of US intervention using the CIA as a tool to aid exploitation for US business interests and profits. We have also witnessed many times that the USA honours no one’s sovereignty, they enter countries at their convenience to carry out illegal wars, bomb villages with drones, target individuals with missiles, mostly without endorsement from the UN.
As a nation the American treatment of perceived enemies is disproportional compared to how they view their own mistakes. At the moment over one hundred times the amount of people have died due to coronavirus in the US compared to September 11. This is mainly due to the incompetence of the US administration under Trump, yet it pales into insignificance in the nation’s collective mind compared to the perpetual wrath meted out on Afghanistan and Iraq.
While the US is clearly seeking to contain China so it cannot become an economic rival and by default remain a less powerful country, it seems to me that China got there through hard work, political stability provided by the CCP, and the desire of Chinese people to be prosperous and work hard to get out of the former poverty traps. If they were Americans they would be lauded for such achievements. So who is the bully here?
As an Asian country with a different culture, China envisages a future of co-operation with many countries despite its size, it re-iterates this via public communication of these views frequently. It seems to me however, that America still thinks along lines that it has to remain the only dominating bully in the world only focussed on its own interests to the detriment of many other countries.
Australian foreign policy is always only a phone call away from Washington !
China was never a colonial country, but they were heavily impacted by colonialism.
What did China do! We’re going to grow; we’re going to become a successful economy, and we’re gonna do it by export.
We’re going to produce the goods for the world. The clothing, the shelter, the appliances…everything.
We’re going to copy; we’re going to bring in the foreign enterprises.
We’re going to open China up to them. The capitalists in the West always wanted it.
We’re going to give it to them. We couldn’t get it if we didn’t.
Europeans tried over and over again — could not do it.
The Chinese said, “Okay, come.” And here’s the deal. Remember I said deal!!!!
We’ll give you the workers, we’ll give you the market; you give us the technology.
Not only the technology, you give us — remember I told you? — the distribution system.
And who gave the Chinese the distribution? Some of you may have heard of them
Walmart if your in the US and you can take your pick on the number of western corporations only willing to oblige the Chinese at the expense of workers in their own country.
The West give a whole new value to the word hypocrisy!
Imagine sitting in Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Singapore or Ho Chi Minh City looking southward at the southern rim of South East Asia, watching the unfolding Australian drama with Canberra exchanging damaging blows with China – Australia largest customer and willingly putting at risk Australia’s economic prosperity.
What might these South East Asian leaders and their people be thinking?
Will they see Canberra’s bravado an exemplar to be admired?
Will they close their shuttles a little for fear that this sworn US-ally with unrequited colonial impulses might deputise her master(s) to unbalance the neighbourhood?
Will they see Canberra as a useful friend, a helpful neighbour or a useful fool?
What damage, if any, is Canberra doing to Australia’s reputation in our own neighbourhood?
Or do we care?
By valiantly proclaiming our refusal to “trade away our values”, is Canberra inadvertently sending this message to our neighbours:
“We will not trade away our White Anglo-Saxon values with you Asian hordes.”
After all, we have rarely, if ever, expressed our warm admirations of “shared values” with our geographically closes South East Asian neighbours or our Pacific neighbours.
Of course, ex-British colony New Zealand being the exception.
The extent to which the new colonialism resembles the old is astonishing. The actors are different but often the technology is the same. The Chinese railway from Yunnan through Laos to Vientiane is a case in point. The classic imperialist technology of the late 19th century used by China to plunder the resources of Laos and effectively colonise the country. Also in the colonial tradition are the vicious expropriation of farmers’ property, the extensive policing privileges, the de facto extraterritoriality of the line’s Chinese administration, and the appalling conditions of the coolies building the railway. Only the Chinese communists don’t call them coolies any more lest they feel the realities of their exploitation. Similar things are in store for the Shan State of Burma. This is what Belt and Road means on the ground.
Sir,
I would agree with you if you provide the evidence to support your allegations. Otherwise it is just a clear case of gratuitous condemnation. If it is forced acquisition of land that you are referring to, it is the responsibility of the participating government; and only the government can be blamed for the miscarriage of justice. Different countries in the region have different laws in regard to the compulsory acquisition of land for development. In the case of Malaysia (also I believe of Singapore) all land is considered crown land whether they are freehold or otherwise. The government can acquire freehold land by suitably compensating the landowner. I do not know the laws of Laos or Cambodia but I am quite certain that accusations of plunder cannot be directed at the Chinese government. Any reasonable person would know that if an Australian company has a project to build a railway in any of the SEA country, they would just build the railway on land designated by the participating government; and that would not constitute plunder by Australia. Your allegations of plunder and colonisation is more insulting to the Laotians than the Chinese. In fact, all your allegations smacks of reflexive colonialism.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti
He is talking about a high speed railway that will link Laos with Malaysia and Singapore. Laos is a landlocked country which currently has to send all its exports by sea. This railway which is part of the TAR UN sanctioned project agreement will liberate Laos from poverty. It is an insult to the Lao people and our intelligence to call this magnificent critical infrastructure project “colonialism” and to call the skillful Lao and Chinese builders “coolies” blatant racism.
Sir,
Thank you for the more informed response.
Sincerely,
Teow Lon Ti
No worries mate. And thank you for your contributions. Stay safe.
Dear Skilts,
Thanks mate. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
Teow Loon Ti
Economically there is similarity between old Western colonialism and the Chinese Belt & Road, but they are fundamentally quite different in approach.
I have not seen myself the ‘plundering of resources, etc’ in Laos that you mentioned; I suspect there has been the corruption of the local elites that has led to the situation.
That aside, if you look at the evolving Belt & Road projects in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, it seems to me their national governments are now competently dealing with the Chinese.
You mentioned ‘coolies’ being deployed- I have been to PNG, and in Port Moresby, both Chinese and local ‘coolies’ worked quite harmoniously together on the new highway.
Apart from the economics, the Chinese do not have the Christian mission to impose their beliefs onto the locals. They have no desire to export their way of governance or to ‘colonise’ the minds of the local populace to believe in the superiority of their system of government. And they have no religion!
ASEAN has a role to play, as an organisation’ to exert pressure on China to play fair in SE Asia. Criticism, even of the sour grapes variety, from Western governments could also help to make transparent China’s activities in the region.
The rise of China is a definite PLUS for the region to the extent that they now have choice and opportunities, whereas previously they only had the dead hand of the IMF/World Bank which invariably led to zero development in their respective countries.
Please dont concede the ‘corruption” card to him. There is no evidence of corruption. He just straight out lied. The railway is part of a 17 nation agreement to link Asia through rail by a UN sanctioned agreement, the TAR, in 2009. It predates Belt and Road.
The ‘technology” is the same. Really? The French really were advanced in colonial Laos. The French left 4 kilometres of railway that is the total Lao railway system to this day. The engineers had to extract many unexploded US imperialist bombs to build this railway in Laos.
The line has 75 tunnels in total, allowing the line to pass through and around 120km of mountains and forests. In June of this year, China Railway Guangzhou Engineering Group completed the 9.3km Ban Nakok Tunnel after more than two years of drilling through four fault zones and the deployment of “scientific and technological innovations”. An even longer tunnel, 15.2km in length, was bored in China’s Yunnan Province . The line will have 198km of tunnels and 62km of bridges which is more than half the length of the line. The electrified 414km railway in Laos will run from Boten station, on
the border between China and Laos, to Vientiane and carry freight and passengers at 160 km/h.
The cost of the project is estimated at $6bn, or roughly a third of Laos’ GDP. $3.6bn is in the form of a loan to Laos from the Export-Import Bank of China and the remaining $2.4bn has been provided by the LCRC, which is 70% owned by Chinese entities. Laos has also invested $250m from its national budget. This railway will form a link in an electrified standard gauge line from China to Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. The very idea of an electrified high speed rail link between Laos and Singapore is outrageous imperialism. After all the French didnt build it. Steam trains and poverty are the right of every Laotian. Perhaps you can elucidate where exactly peasants have been relocated in Laos due to rail tunnels and bridges? Dont know about “coolies” but reactionaries are outraged by this modern railway. This railway is part of The Trans-Asian Railway (TAR) to create an integrated freight railway network across Asia. Something the colonial power never did in Asia. Because they were pillagers not builders. The TAR is a project of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. TAR as signed by 17 Asian countries and came into force in 2009. Chinese Imperialism? Turn it up champ.
Of course the technology is more up to date. And I was thinking more of the more effective imperialist railways in Southeast Asia like the Butterworth-Haad Yai-Bangkok line (British), or the Chemin de her de l’Indochine et du Yunnan (French) than the rather sad French efforts in Laos, where the only railway was an aid to navigation of the Mekong. China, of course, has far more resources than France ever had to invest in Southeast Asia. The effect of the proposed railway should be beneficial to humanity overall, but its effect (and its aim) will be to enmesh Laos far more into China’s economy. The engineering in undoubtedly impressive, as all China’s railways through difficult terrain are. World class, no doubt about it. Those many technological merits (shared by the French and British lines of more than a century ago in relative terms) do not detract from the reality of the political purpose, which to my mind rather resembles that of the South Manchurian Railway Company, which was accompanied by a technological transfer but also by considerable immigration and a sizeable “policing” presence (in this case Japanese into what was sort of part of China, at any rate was certainly part of the Qing empire).
As for the trans-Asian element, I doubt this will happen. The Thais are resistant to extension of Chinese railways across the Mekong, and in fact are extending their metre-gauge railway further in Laos as I type. Modernisation and electrification of the Malaysian railway system has been entirely on their indigenous metre gauge, even though most of the kit has been imported from China. The use of differing railway gauges as a means of restricting economic and political influence is about as old as the hills, or as old as the technology of the railway at any rate. It’s still going on. I for one can’t blame the Thais for their hesitation.
So you equate railways with imperialism? Railways are inherently imperialist? Heaven help us in this country. The French built 4 kilometers of track during the whole period of Laotian colonial exploitation. Laos is a landlocked country. In case you cant read a map the railway through the TAR agreement is going south. The line is to be extended through Malaysia (they have already agreed to the construction) to Singapore. The potential for Laos to be able to export through to Singapore is the future of the development of the country. You doubt the “trans-Asian element? This is a UN treaty agreement.
https://treaties.un.org/Pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=TREATY&mtdsg_no=XI-C-5&chapter=11&clang=_en
What on earth are you talking about with different gauges? The TAR project is for a standard gauge. Are you seriously suggesting that TAR signed by 17 Asian countries and a project of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) is colonialism?
https://www.gica.global/initiative/trans-asian-railway-network
The main benefit to Laos is the south rail through Malaysia. Vietnam is building an east west rail line through Laos which you are not even aware apparently. More communist colonialism? You alleged that this was Chinese neo-colonialism. You deliberately misled in what you wrote in regard to the issue of Chinese investment and loans. The Lao railway isn’t part of Belt and Road. It is a TAR UN project. You probably think the UN is a world communist conspiracy? Your offensive comment on “coolies” is racist. Take it to the morons of the Murdoch media empire. Doesnt wash here. Swing and a miss champ
according to VOA, back in 2015 it’s part of the B&Rs.
https://www.voanews.com/east-asia/laos-looks-balance-chinas-growing-economic-influence
It would also appear that China will possibly get a concession on the land that the track is built.
https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/International-relations/Land-locked-Laos-on-track-for-controversial-China-rail-link
Mate please do some research It is part of TAR signed in 2009. You link to a right wing anti-PRC propaganda outfit. Voice of America. Are you having a leg pull? It is a TAR project of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP). You just ignore the agreement signed by 22 countries? I know the anti-PRC crowd is becoming desperate but this is ridiculous. Then you link to a Japanese anti-PRC site article that is two years old. Of course the Japanese history of building railways in Asia is appalling and a war crime for which they still havent apologised. This railway has been built without slave labour and atrocities. There is no “concession” on the “land”. It was built through mountains!! Half of the line is tunnels and bridges. Mate the train has pulled out of the station literally and figuratively for the anti-PRC moaners and groaners. Its over. Take the whinging elsewhere. No one in Laos is listening.
If it was like Western Imperialism, the Chinese would have parked their newest and biggest battleship off shore (obviously it cant be done with Laos) and either threatened to blow the capital to pieces to force trade and the flow of business, as the Americans did with Japan in the 1850s, or just sent their battleships in to blow up the place to force further opium trade as they did in Canton (Guandong).
Let’s note Western Imperialism is full of tales of slavery, shocking cruelty, abuse, murder, injustice, massive exploitation, and leaving countries far poorer than when they arrived as with both India and China.
I suggest you read Richard Gott’s Britain’s Empire (568 pages), a book that compiles the various historical records and eye witness accounts of what the British did around the world during their times as an empire. It will make you sick and bears no resemblance to China’s highly civilised BRI.
As the saying goes:
“The lie is not in what we are told but what we are not told.”
Anglo-American masters excel in that which is not told.
Sir,
What an excellent analysis. It is realistic and informative. I particularly appreciate the following encapsulation of the region’s dilemma: “Some Southeast Asian have welcomed the contest and tried to hedge and thus benefit from the largess of both –China’s economic assistance and the US security blanket.” The country that represents this dualistic situation best is Singapore. Being a tiny and trade dependent country, they have openly stated that they value the security provided by the US while they trade and exchange investments freely with China. They are wary, as they should be, of the growing military presence of China; but the question as to whether they can trust the US not to commit another Vietnam style mistake is as hard a decision to make.
The difficult situation that the SEA countries faces vis-a-vis the US is clearly summed up by the following sentence: “They wonder if it is willing to compromise to avoid confrontation and the pain and suffering that will bring to the rest of the world—and to Southeast Asia in particular.”
I couldn’t agree more with the final statement: “The harder but better way out for all concerned is for the U.S. to determine and negotiate where, when, and how to compromise on what. History shows the U.S. cannot be top dog forever. Negotiating will provide an extension of its reign and the possibility of a ‘soft’ landing.”
I wonder what the government ministers read for a nuanced understanding of a complex and sensitive situation if not the above and others like it on P&I.
Sincerely,
Teow Loon Ti