ANEAN’s Different Perceptions To China’s Rise

The primary objective of this thesis is to explain in the question of why ASEAN hasdifferent perceptions to China’s rise. For ASEAN’s different perceptions to China’s rise, thereare two concepts which include threat and opportunity perceptions. In literature review, the firstgroup of scholars believes that ASEAN’s threat perception can be described from the securityissue and historical event which ASEAN has to encounter with China. Meanwhile, another groupof scholars see China’s rise as ASEAN’s opportunity from the cooperation and China’seconomic assistance.The main hypothesis of this paper argues that the different of ASEAN’s perceptions toChina’s rise actually based on each ASEAN members’ national benefit from China; for example,if some issues decline their national benefit and security, some members probably see China’srise as threat perception such as South China Sea issue or Communist movement in the historicalevent. Meanwhile, if some issues encourage their national benefit such as regional cooperation,economic assistance, and other form of development, some members probably see China’s riseas their opportunity. However, ASEAN adopts two perceptions concept differently due to theintervening variable from United States as well.In order to test the hypothesis in this paper, it is conducted four case studies fromdifferent dimensions which include historical aspect of China and Core ASEAN, security aspectfrom South China Sea, Sino-ASEAN cooperation aspect from various cooperation, and Sino-USCompetitive relations in Southeast Asia in order to understand ASEAN’s different perceptions toChina’s rise in each aspect.After testing the four case studies, I found that ASEAN adopt different perceptions toChina’s rise based on two factors. Firstly, ASEAN’s threat perceptions to China’s rise are allfrom security aspect since cold war to present; for example, historical aspect and security inSouth China Sea aspect. Secondly, ASEAN’s opportunity perceptions to China’s rise are all fromthe economic cooperation and development between China and ASEAN. However, Sino-UScompetitive relations are the important factor to shift ASEAN’s perceptions to China’s rise. As aconsequence, all four dimensions and two factors are the key to understand ASEAN’s differentperceptions to China’s rise.