East Asian Policy

China-Malaysia relations would be strengthened through the Belt and Road Initiative. Chinese industrial overcapacity is a factor in infrastructure investment in Malaysia which needs international collaboration projects for domestic economic development. Challenges include the unstable Malaysian political economy and ethnic issue as well as the economic slowdown of China, and the geopolitics of the South China Sea.

China and Japan are intensively vying for high-speed rail markets in Southeast Asia. Focusing on the developments surrounding the bid for Indonesia’s first high-speed rail project from Jakarta to Bandung, this paper investigates Japan and China’s relative strategies, and considers the policy options available to ASEAN to manage the risks rooted in Sino-Japanese competition in the sector.

China’s ambitious military reform deepens with the establishment of a new commission on 22 January 2017 helmed by Chinese President Xi Jinping. The new commission will oversee the integration of military and civilian development. Xi aims to nurture Chinese defence manufacturers that are comparable to Lockheed Martin and Boeing in the United States and develop a military-industrial complex for the military modernisation commensurate with its rising international profile.

In the past three years, a trend towards the centralisation of decision-making power in Chinese foreign policy instituted by Xi Jinping has become more and more apparent. The driver of the shift in Chinese foreign policy is the reform of its decision-making system. The ‘reform’ not only refers to institution building but also includes change of the former procedures of foreign policy decisionmaking to create a more efficient decision-making system.

With increasing clout in world affairs, China has begun to enhance its International Public Goods (IPG) provision in the footsteps of the Great Britain and the United States. Its IPG provision could be enhanced through existing IPGs, such as increasing its budget share in the United Nations, and producing IPGs out of its own initiation and design, such as the establishment of the Shanghai Corporation Organisation and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.

The growing tension between China and Japan over territoriality and maritime rights in the East China Sea has become one of the biggest potential flashpoints in the bilateral relationship. In no time, the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku islands have become a great concern for the stability in China-Japan relations. Given the escalating tensions, managing this dispute has become imperative for maintaining bilateral as well as regional peace and stability. .

Dismal trade performance contributed to China’s recent growth deceleration. In 2017, China’s trade will likely be impacted by persistent weak external demand, rising trade remedies by importing countries and intense competition from other developing countries. Trade frictions between China and the United States may intensify. To sustain trade development, the Chinese government has modified its policy orientations and is accelerating regional trade talks such as the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.

After decades of continuous investment and efforts, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has established a multi-tiered system, including co-option, surveillance and monitoring, and ideological and political education, to ensure its domination of Chinese college students, For the foreseeable future, Chinese college students, as a group, are unlikely to actively mount significant challenges (like those of the 1989 incident) against the CCP that could undermine its political survival.

Since 2013, the establishment of “New-Type of Think Tanks with Chinese Characteristics” (NTTTCC) has been highly promoted by the Xi Jinping administration. “The Opinions on Strengthening the Construction of NTTTCC” was approved by the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms in 2014, while the “National Top Think Tank Pilot Programme” was approved by the Central Leading Group in 2015. With these efforts, the comprehensive management architecture for think tanks has been established in China.

Six pro-independence/pro-autonomy individuals who ran for the Hong Kong elections were successfully elected to Hong Kong’s legislature in 2016, reflecting some public sentiments about the current state of affairs between Beijing and Hong Kong. As they are still young, they may stay on in power until the ‘one country, two systems’ ends. Since the Occupy Central movement, a series of social movements and standoffs such as the “Fishball Revolution” and other political events had taken place.