Topic: China's Rising and Southeast Asia

Time: 3:00-5:00pm, Sept.6， 2017

Venue: Room C105，School of International Studies,Peking University

Penalists: Dr.Shaun Breslin, Dr.Lee Jones and Dr. Shahar Hameiri

Chair: Professor Wang Yong, School of International Studies
    Center for International Political Economy
    Peking University

Penalists:
Shaun  Breslin’s group: 
(1) Professor Shaun Breslin, PhD, FAcSS
Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick
Co-Editor, The Pacific Review

 (2) Dr.Lee Jones
Reader in International Politics 01/2016 – Present
School of Politics & International Relations
Queen Mary, University of London

 (3) Dr. Shahar Hameiri 
Associate Professor of International Politics
Associate Director of the Graduate Centre in Governance and International Affairs
School of Political Science and International Studies
University of Queensland

The roundtable discussion will focus on the findings of the project attended by the penalists. This project investigates how state transformation is shaping the much-heralded ‘rise of China’, providing a new way to understand contemporary ‘emerging’ or ‘rising powers’ that will be useful for scholars, policymakers, journalists and businesses.

Since the late 1970s, reflecting dramatic shifts in national and global political economy dynamics, the Chinese state has undergone massive internal changes: (a) the fragmentation of state apparatuses, including the privatisation of state-owned enterprises and the multiplication of ministries and other agencies; (b) decentralisation, particularly the empowerment of provincial governments to autonomously conduct foreign economic relations; and (c) uneven internationalisation, as Chinese agencies pursue their interests overseas and become integrated into regional and global circuits of capital, trade and governance.

This project traces the consequences of these changes for Chinese foreign and security policy as China ‘rises’ to become the world’s most important ‘emerging power’. Contrary to mainstream International Relations (IR) treatments, which typically treat ‘rising powers’ as coherent, unitary actors, this project will develop a new analytical framework, foregrounding contested processes of state transformation and highlighting the conflict-ridden and often incoherent policy outcomes this generates. Focusing on China’s near-abroad in Southeast Asia, it will apply this framework to analyse case studies of: Chinese conduct in the South China Sea, the region’s major security ‘flashpoint’; Chinese governance initiatives in the Greater Mekong Subregion, covering trade, investment and non-traditional security cooperation; and Chinese development assistance.

The project will focus on the following questions:
1. Analyse the factors and dynamics that shape, promote or constrain processes of state transformation in China.
2. Investigate how contested state transformation processes shape Chinese foreign and security policies towards Southeast Asia.
3. Examine the effects of Chinese attempts to manage increasingly transnational interests upon the transformation of Southeast Asian states. 
4. Assess the consequences for the stability of the regional and broader international order.
5. Enhance International Relations theory by developing a novel analytic framework for understanding contemporary rising powers.