Home | Databases | WorldLII | Search | Feedback Edited Legal Collections Data

Wang, Wenjia --- "The EU-ASEAN economic relations and China-ASEAN economic relations" [2015] ELECD 395; in Wouters, Jan; Defraigne, Jean-Christophe; Burnay, Matthieu (eds), "China, the European Union and the Developing World" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015) 89

Book Title: China, the European Union and the Developing World

Editor(s): Wouters, Jan; Defraigne, Jean-Christophe; Burnay, Matthieu

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781783477333

Section: Chapter 3

Section Title: The EU-ASEAN economic relations and China-ASEAN economic relations

Author(s): Wang, Wenjia

Number of pages: 35

Abstract/Description:

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) states have a long history connecting them with both China and the European Union (EU). The tributary system has marked China’s relations with its Southeast Asian neighbors for three millennia. Due to geographic proximity, China views Southeast Asia both as its traditional sphere of influence and as a strategic backdoor through which a hostile outside power could penetrate and disrupt China’s development. Europe built its first direct commercial linkages with Southeast Asia in the 15th century (Dixon, 1991: 58). Europe subsequently turned its relationship with Southeast Asia from one based on simple trading to one where it controlled the supply of the most valuable products, replacing China as the dominant force in the region. Most Southeast Asian countries succumbed to European colonialists: Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei to Britain; Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to France; Indonesia to the Netherlands; and the Philippines to Spain and then the United States.