History of China-ASEAN relations

One of the directions of involvement of the People's Republic of China in globalization is its participation in regionalization which represents a necessary stage of economic globalization on a long way to the world integration. China understands regionalism as a phenomenon resisting globalism. Representing interdependence of the countries and an expansion of interests of economic subjects across national borders, it, nevertheless, limits the sphere of their action to a regional framework. The Chinese strategy of Asian regionalism first of all needs release from traditions of ideology and introduction of ideology of the Asian consent connected with the system of the national states so that the general civilization of future Asia served as the tool of intra-regional unity and at the same time was some kind of an antidote preventing blind intolerance and rejection of "openness". The aspiration to provide dominating positions in Southeast Asia has long been one of the main foreign policy priorities of China. Restoration of the relations of the People' s Republic of China with the Southeast Asian countries that began in the 1980s was connected not so much with reconciliation, compromise and trust searches with the ruling regimes of these countries, but with sharp activation of the Chinese expansion to the south - on the islands of the South China Sea - the Paracels and Spratlys. In the late 1980s - early 1990s the foreign policy strategy and respectively the theory and practice of the Chinese diplomacy in Asia and in other world was in many respects defined by the orientation of Deng Xiaoping toward "concealment of the opportunities". To a certain degree it constrained the regional and global activity of China. However, with the growth of economic openness and real force China began to show an increasing interest in participation in the international institutes, in their reorganization and updating, and in some cases began to get the leading role in them. Respectively the relation of China to regional cooperation in the field of economy and safety changed. Since the middle of the 1990s, that is during the rapprochement with the ASEAN countries, Beijing ceased to declare the aspiration to military-political domination in the region. Originally the emphasis in the relations of China and ASEAN was made on the advancing development of economy and trade. The turning point in the relations of ASEAN and the People's Republic of China can be considered to be the events connected with the financial and economic crisis of 1997 - 1998 China managed to prove itself extremely positively in the opinion of the ruling elite of the ASEAN countries: it did not devaluate yuan and gave quite a significant help to the countries especially affected by the crisis, thereby considerably correcting its image in their eyes. From the point of view of the prospects of the ASEAN countries' economic development the concluded agreement on creation of a free trade zone of ASEAN - China is essential. It will be the world's largest free trade zone. In parallel a tendency amplifies to conclude groups of agreements on free trade zones by certain countries already on a bilateral basis. As a whole it is possible to note that today the ASEAN turned into an influential center of gravity in the Asia Pacific Region not only in the political, but also in the economic spheres.

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