ASEAN PERCEPTIONS OF CHINA IN THE POST-COLD WAR ERA

Abstract

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is emerging as an important actor in post-Cold War Southeast Asia while China is assuming de facto superpower status in East Asia with the Soviet Union's collapse and the lower profile of the United States' in the western Pacific. While the end of the Cold War has removed the ideological and political anxieties that pitted Communist China and non-Communist ASEAN against one another, it has also left ASEAN and China with the need to redefine their relationship in the post-Cold War era. In this regard, the ASEAN states have moderated their Cold War images of China as a security threat. This has been largely due to economic considerations although the traditional preoccupation with China's leverage over the ASEAN states' domestic politics has also declined. However, this does not mean that the ASEAN states' perceptions of the China threat have disappeared altogether. The historical legacy of the Cold War and China's intents in Southeast Asia continue to induce caution in the ASEAN states' attitudes towards China.