Ian Storey's book deals with a highly relevant topic, namely, relations between South-East Asia and China. It looks at both the South-East Asian region's relations with China and the individual countries' relations with China. These countries are the ten member states of the Association of the Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam – as well as East Timor. The book is very ambitious, given the wide range of relationships it aims to outline and analyse.
The book consists of an “Introduction” outlining the purpose, focus and objectives of the book and three main parts. Part one, “The Evolution of Southeast Asia–China Relations, 1949–2010,” includes three chapters that deal with relations between the region as a whole and China, firstly during the Cold War era, then during the 1990s and finally during the first decade of the 21st century. Part two, “Mainland Southeast Asia and the PRC,” includes five chapters respectively examining relations between China and the following countries: Vietnam, Thailand, Burma/Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia. Part three, “Maritime Southeast Asia and the PRC,” includes six chapters, dealing respectively with relations between China and Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Brunei and East Timor. The book also includes an “Epilogue.”
The two-pronged approach by the author, with a broader first part and case studies relating to the bilateral relationships in the second and third parts, is interesting. However, it unfortunately results in certain key developments being outlined in the first part and not in the chapters dealing with the bilateral relationships, although these developments impact on the bilateral relationships. A better approach might have been to include a chapter on ASEAN–China relations and then move to the bilateral relationships. This would have made the book more coherent, and would have allowed the author to address key developments in the bilateral relationships more thoroughly.
Part one, with its broad approach to relations between South-East Asia and China from 1949 to 2010, deals with important events and dramatic developments. Unfortunately, the complexities involved and alternative lines of explanations that exist are not highlighted in the text or in the notes. In addition, there are surprisingly few references to support the wide range of events and developments that are encompassed by these three chapters. Throughout the book, the sources used by Storey are mainly scholarly and journalistic secondary sources. This is unsatisfactory: particularly when dealing with disputed issues between countries, primary sources should have been utilized to a larger extent.
One of the strengths of the book is that Storey highlights territorial disputes, particularly those in the South China Sea, in the contexts of the relationships between several South-East Asian countries and China. In two cases the South China Sea is especially relevant: namely between Vietnam and China and between the Philippines and China. These two case studies also display the impact of the author's pre-existing expertise as compared to the wider expertise that he has recently acquired for the purpose of the book. Storey has previously written on relations between the Philippines and China with particular reference to the South China Sea, and this is positively reflected in the way that the relationship between the two countries is addressed in the book. On the other hand, he has not previously written on relations between Vietnam and China, and this is reflected in that chapter and in his selective use of secondary sources. The omission of the majority of studies dealing directly with border disputes between the two countries is surprising: most notably, none of the publications by the leading Vietnamese scholar, Nguyen Hong Thao, have been consulted by Storey. A more thorough utilization of the existing literature would have benefitted the chapter on Vietnam–China relations.
The book is uneven in quality, as could be expected given that the author is not an expert on the relationships between all South-East Asian countries and China and he is not an expert on China and its foreign relations. To properly address all relationships and the China dimension it would have been necessary to do an edited volume with a group of experts. Having said that, Storey's book still manages to give an overview of the complexities of the relationship between South-East Asia and China. The book should be consulted as a complement to existing literature on the relationship between South-East Asia and China, including on ASEAN-China relations, as well as to existing literature on the relationships between individual South-East Asian countries and China.
