For a while now increasing protests have sprung up in certain ASEAN countries over China’s encroaching presence (economic or otherwise). The incidents are anecdotal, too flimsy to support conclusions, but there is enough in the background of China’s relations with ASEAN countries to warrant some thought to the matter.
Distrust of China’s motivation is prevalent in pockets of society in Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand. In Vietnam, distrust of their government’s China policy fueled demonstrations in consecutive weeks, stoked by fears that the proposed coastal economic zones for foreigners would be beachheads for an invasion of Chinese businesses. They have driven Vietnamese authorities to detain more than 100 people protesting against the government’s plans to create new urban economic zones. Many fear that Chinese companies and investors will get the lion’s share.
They targeted special economic zones in Hanoi. Hundreds of Vietnamese took to the streets in different parts of the country to demonstrate against a government proposal to grant companies lengthy land leases. A draft law would allow foreign investors to lease land in special economic zones for up to 99 years. Although the proposed legislation does not identify any country in particular, many in Vietnam fear that these economic zones could be dominated by Chinese firms. In response to the criticism over the bill, the government announced that it would be postponed until the October parliamentary session. The announcement, however, failed to pacify the demonstrators, who clashed with police over the weekend, with 102 people detained on Sunday.
In Indonesia, students confront China with prejudice. One of the big issues was protests in some campuses which reacted to an unproven report that Indonesian students in China are studying communism. Students studying in China with years of living experience deny the rumors. A graduate from multiple year programs says she has never studied communism or taken a class in ideology during those years. Politicians raise the specter of communism in Indonesia, a country with a long and tumultuous history of conflict. Electoral politics in 2018 and 2019 capitalize on communist phobia in Indonesia. They spread fake news on the ‘communist threat’ and China’s influence in Indonesia. However, mostly attitudes have changed. Reasonably intelligent people do not think that China is educating foreign students in communist ideology, because that is not their main concern now.
The Vietnamese experience with Communism and China is much different. For them Communism is positive force which energized nationalism that made them capable the aggression of France and the United States to create the modern Vietnamese state. Historically they have a long history of oppression by China before the Western invasions. That is why they sought their Communist alliance with the Soviet Union who are further away to pose a geopolitical threat. But now China has become a superpower right on their doorstep and it exacerbates their fear of economic domination.
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