Executive Summary

As Asia’s largest country and a rapidly rising power, China exerts a significant impact on its immediate neighbourhood. It is no surprise that there has been much discussion and speculation about China’s extant and future behaviour in the region. It is important to properly assess the trends and trajectory of China’s international relations within its immediate region: in particular, how China intends to conduct its regional policy as it interacts with other regional powers, and in the context of the U.S. re-balance to Asia.

China’s diplomacy with its periphery has, at the same time, resulted in the opening up of its border regions to its immediate neighbours since the institutionalisation of economic reforms, with the most significant transformations taking place in the past decade. To the policy community and the scholarly world, however, the developments between China and its bordering countries remain poorly understood, with the commonly held assumption that Chinese peripheral diplomacy has largely been the result of directed efforts by the central government as opposed to coordinated collaboration between the central government and the bordering provinces.

In view of its size, and the vast land and sea boundaries that it shares with its neighbours in the Northeast, Southeast, South as well as Central Asia, China has always regarded its peripheral policy as a crucial aspect of its national security. Such a mentality conforms to the leaders’ core belief that a stable external environment remains the sine qua non for the continued and sustained rejuvenation of their nation.

Against this backdrop, the China Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) and the Department of Government and Public Administration at the University of Macau (UM) co-organised a conference titled “China’s Regional Policy in Asia: An Omni-directional Assessment” on 9-10 December 2013. This joint conference aimed to investigate in further depth and breadth the core issues facing China’s evolving peripheral policy. In particular, the conference attempted to address the following questions:

(i) Whether China has a coherent regional policy for its periphery?
(ii) To what extent has China’s regional policy been dictated by the central government? And what about the role of provincial authorities along China’s border regions?
(iii) What has changed or remained unchanged in China’s regional policy towards its neighbours?
(iv) In what ways have China’s diplomacy with its periphery had an impact on its relationships with key regional players and on sub-regional integration in Asia?
(v) What is the likely trajectory of China’s regional policy?

By providing a platform to further enhance the academic and policymaking community’s understanding of China’s evolving relations with its regional neighbours, the conference saw participants engage in lively discussions and debates on the challenges and prospects of China’s peripheral engagement as it continues its path of economic development and grows in global and regional stature.

The start of the conference was marked by welcome remarks from Ambassador Barry Desker, Dean of RSIS, and Professor Hao Yufan, Dean of UM’s Social Sciences Faculty, who both expressed their hopes that the conference would serve to illuminate key issues of China’s international relations with its periphery. This was followed by a broad overview of China’s regional foreign policy before the conference proceeded to more focused discussions on China’s diplomacy vis–à–vis the Northeast Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian and Central/West Asian regions. Conference participants expressed optimism that there is room for China and its neighbours to pursue common interests and establish the foundations for secure borders and stable relations with each other.