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3. According to Yazhou Zhoukan (Asiaweek), September 25, 1994, the aggregate assets of the 500 leading
Chinese-owned companies in Southeast Asia totaled about $540 billion. Other estimates are even higher:
International Economy,. November/December 1996, reported that the annual in-c'ome of the 50 million
overseas Chinese was approximately the above amount and thus roughly equal to the GDP of, China's
mainland. The overseas Chinese were said to control about 90 percent of Indonesia's economy, 75 percent of
Thailand's, 50-60 percent of Malaysia's, and the whole economy in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
Concern over this condition even led a former Indonesian ambassador to Japan to warn publicly of a "Chinese
economic intervention in the region," which might not only exploit such Chinese presence but which could even
lead to Chinese-sponsored "puppet governments" (Saydiman Suryohadiprojo, "How to Deal with China and
Taiwan," AsahiShimbun [Tokyo], September 23, 1996).
The scope of China as a global power would most probably involve a significantly deeper southern bulge,
with both Indonesia and the Philippines compelled to adjust to the reality of the Chinese navy as the dominant
force in the South China Sea. Such a China might be much more tempted to resolve the issue of Taiwan by
force, irrespective of America's attitude. In the West, Uzbekistan, the Central Asian state most determined to
resist Russian encroachments on its former imperial domain, might favor a countervailing alliance with China,
as might Turkmenistan; and China might also become more assertive in the ethnically divided and thus
nationally vulnerable Kazakstan. A China that becomes truly both a political and an economic giant might also
project more overt political influence into the Russian Far East, while sponsoring Korea's unification under its
aegis (see map on page 167).
But such a bloated China would also be more likely to encounter strong external opposition. The previous
map makes it evident that in the West, both Russia and India would have good geopolitical reasons to ally in
seeking to push back China's challenge. Cooperation between them would be likely to focus heavily on Central
Asia and Pakistan, whence China would threaten their interests the most. In the south, opposition would be
strongest from Vietnam and Indonesia (probably backed by Australia). In the east, America, probably backed
by Japan, would react adversely to any Chinese efforts to gain predominance in Korea and to incorporate
Taiwan by force, actions that would reduce the American political presence in the Far East to a potentially
unstable and solitary perch in Japan.
4. Symptomatic in that regard was the report published in the Bangkok English-language daily, The Nation
(March 31, 1997), on the visit to Beijing by the Thai Prime Minister, Chavalit Yongchaiyudh. The purpose of
the visit was defined as establishing a firm strategic alliance with "Greater China." The Thai leadership was
said to have "recognized China as a superpower that has a global role," and as wishing to serve as "a bridge
between China and ASEAN." Singapore has gone even farther in stressing ils idcnlilicalion with China.
Ultimately, the probability of either scenario sketched out on the maps fully coming to pass depends not only
on how China itself develops but also very much on American conduct and presence. A disengaged America
would make the second scenario much more likely, but even the comprehensive emergence of the first would
require some American accommodation and self-restraint. The Chinese know this, and hence Chinese policy
has to be focused primarily on influencing both American conduct and, especially, the critical American-
Japanese connection, with China's other relationships manipulated tactically with that strategic concern in mind.
China's principal objection to America relates less to what America actually does than to what America
currently is and where it is. America is seen by China as the world's current hege-mon, whose very presence in
the region, based on its dominant position in Japan, works to contain China's influence. In the words of a
Chinese analyst employed in the research arm of the Chinese Foreign Ministry: "The U.S. strategic aim is to
seek hegemony in the whole world and it cannot tolerate the appearance of any big power on the European and
Asian continents that will constitute a threat to its leading position."5 Hence, simply by being what it is and
where it is, America becomes China's unintentional adversary rather than its natural ally.
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