What COVID-19 Reveals About China-Southeast Asia Relations
As most Southeast Asian governments anticipate China’s potential reaction and adjust their behaviours accordingly, China no longer needs to exert explicit pressure. The COVID-19 crisis has made this trend more obvious, highlighting not only the internalisation of this “privileged relationship” but also a more disturbing – but unspoken – reality: Southeast Asian countries’ acceptance of China’s soft power and their dependence on it. This change of tone is indeed good news for China’s proactive diplomacy.
