on China’s Economy: Causes and Impacts,” looks at economic relationships between Vietnam and China, since the mid-2000s, which have blossomed as economic exchange between the two countries have rapidly grown in almost all sectors. In between, China has become Vietnam’s biggest trading partner as well as an important destination for Vietnamese exports. As of 2017, trade volume between the two countries had reached US$93.69 billion, accounting for 22% of Vietnam’s total trade value, the highest among the ASEAN countries. However, these growing economic ties have also heightened the reliance of the Vietnamese economy on China in various sectors, from agriculture to manufacturing and services. This chapter examines the increase of such reliance, its causes, and impact on the bilateral partnership, particularly under the BRI.
Nguyễn Văn Chính and Ðinh Thị Thanh Huyền, in their chapter, “Vietnam — China Economic Cooperation: Aid or Burden?” analyze China’s foreign aid to developing as controversial affairs. Recent studies tend to suggest that flows of aid from China are not based on the need of the receiving countries but motivated by its national interest, and these flows of aid are often used as a tool to advance its political interests. A different perspective, however, believes that China’s aid is welcomed as an alternative to Western donors, particularly because it is not based on bureaucratic procedures with detailed policy conditionality. While the debate is going on, there are, however, quite a few studies that look at China’s aid from local and empirical levels. This chapter examines the scope, types, allocation, and conditions of China’s aid to Vietnam since the normalization of relationship between the two countries in 1991. The analysis in this chapter aims to explore the characteristics and nature of China’s aid as well as the impact of this aid flow to the development of Vietnam in the context of recent political and economic relations between the two countries. The findings indicate that China’s aid to Vietnam represent the political–economic cooperation between the two, based on its preferred diplomacy model G-to-G while P-to-P diplomacy was ignored until recent years. Aid flows from China have changed from “politics first” motivations to a combination of political strategies and economic gains. In its nature, China’s aid could be the convergence of interests, including political, commercial, and reputational, but it does not conform to the international standard of official development aid, rather aiming to facilitate trade and investment as well as its political strategies in Vietnam.
Somdeth Bodhisane and Thantavanh Manolom, in their chapter, “Determinants of FDI and Policies for Attracting Chinese FDI into Laos,” discuss Lao’s transition from a centrally planned system to a more market-oriented one since the second half of the 1980s. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) has been considered, since then, as the most important driver for developing the economy of Laos, in addition to other benefits in terms of technology transfer from multinational firms through such investments. FDI inflows into Laos have gradually been transformed into a provider of natural resources in the region, consisting of mainly energy, minerals, woods, and cash crops. From 1988 to 2016, FDI inflows from China were approximately US$5.5 billion, and China was the number one foreign investor in Laos. This chapter aims to find out determinants and policies of attracting FDI, and suggests potential investment sectors. This chapter also shows that there is no consensus or uniform determinants of FDI found and that the most common determinants are the host country’s market size and its economic prospects. In particular, resource determinants of Chinese investors in Laos are availability of natural resources, political stability, low wages, emerging middle class, and land abundance for agricultural purposes. However, several other factors are on the downside, and these need to be taken into account. Some of these are the high transport costs, slow documentary and bureaucratic process, small domestic market, and lack of local purchasing power.
Alay Phonvisay and Thantavanh Manolom, in their chapter, “The Influence of Chinese Investments in the Mining Sector in Laos: Land Concession and Concession Fees,” begin by demonstrating the important role of the mining sector in the Laos economy since the early 2000s, as it is a country with rich natural resources with more than 572 deposits and prospects across the country. More recent surveys suggest 1.5 million hectares of land concession for mining activities, which account for around 70% of the total granted land lease and concession for investment in Laos. The mining industry in Laos has generated revenue of around US$16 billion in 2016, comprising concession fees, royalties, taxes, and dividends, with 10% of the country’s labor force — which was about 245,000 people — in 2010. However, government receipts of concession fees across the country amounted to about US$27.8 million from 2010 to 2016, with Chinese, Vietnamese, and Lao mining companies combined accounting for US$21.7 million, i.e. around 80% of the total mining concession fees.
Mu Mu Theint, in her chapter, “China’s Rising Influence and Its Implications on Myanmar–Thailand Trade,” analyzes China’s trade and investment relations with Myanmar, which have become significantly important with the development of the changing economic corridor, aiming at building political connections and ensuring geopolitical and economic integration. The chapter also discusses the effects of China’s rising influence, which have created opportunities as well as challenges for Myanmar. However, the relaxation of political sanctions by Western and European countries has helped to somewhat reduce China’s influence, but this is still early to say. As for ASEAN, China’s increasing cooperation with Myanmar might cause the grouping to balance to a certain extent the way in which each ASEAN country deals with one another, as Myanmar has also expressed its willingness to channel its development and aid with peaceful resolution of ethnic conflicts with ASEAN, in addition to China.
1.2.4.Connectivity in Focus
The last section illustrates a few important aspects of connectivity dynamics, from the past up to the present, which will help better understand the future outlook of connectivity between China and mainland ASEAN. Precisely, Stan BH Tan-Tangbau, in his chapter, “Experiencing the Dian-Việt Railway Corridor as Panoramization: A View from the Past,” explains how as inhabitants of transborder China–Mainland Southeast Asia enter the third decade of the 21st century, it would not be controversial to say “we” since Southeast Asians feel the pervasiveness of “China”. There is no escaping China, especially with the heightened connectivity through the BRI. This is just the beginning, as the chapters of this volume remind us: “China is now and will continue to be a part of our everyday life”. Heightening of connectivity in the transborder space between China and Mainland Southeast Asia is not a new phenomenon; it has happened before. In the case of Vietnam, realization of the transborder railway corridor between Hai Phong and Kunming at the start of the 20th century provided us with a historical context to consider local dynamics at play in specific nodes of interaction. This chapter, thus, applies Schivelbusch Wolfgang’s concept of “panoramization” to show how meta-categories of China and Vietnam (French Indochina) then translate into a “panorama that could be experienced” through travel in the process of developing the Dian-Viet railway corridor. The author suggests two things that could be picked up from the optic of panoramization. First, these meta-categories are but among multiple components that complete the panoramic experience at every node of connectivity. Second, as much as the Dian-Viet Railway was driven by French colonial ambitions to penetrate China, the corridor was no simple unidirectional conduit transporting French imperialism inland. A critical revisit of the historical geography of the Dian-Viet Railway corridor, the chapter suggests, could unveil local dynamics that might occur in transborder reconfigurations beneath China’s rising influence in mainland Southeast Asia.
Nisachol Thaithong and Nisarat Thaithong’s chapter, “Thailand–Laos–Vietnam and Southern China: Land Logistic and Transportation,” was based on a survey in Southern China, Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand. Since the last sub-prime crisis of 2008, China and the mainland ASEAN countries’ strengthening of connectivity through land route infrastructure has been necessary for promoting regional competitiveness and mutual trust for both sides. Viewed from different cross- and sub-regional initiatives like the BRI, the upgraded version of the ASEAN–China FTA, the China–Indochina Economic Corridor, the Lancang–Mekong Cooperation (LMC) mechanism, and the “Chongqing–Guangxi–Singapore” International Intermodal Transport route, this chapter
