Thammasat University students interested in ASEAN studies, China, business, economics, political science, and related subjects may find it useful to participate in a free 3 September Zoom webinar on Chinese Investments in Southeast Asia: Patterns and Significance.
The event, on Tuesday, 5 September 2024 at 9am Bangkok time, is organized by the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore.
The event announcement explains:
Southeast Asia’s growing economic linkages with China have generated political opportunities and strategic concerns in equal measure. This seminar provides a fuller picture of Chinese investments in Southeast Asia for those seeking to understand its significance and impacts. The speaker will draw her analyses and conclusions from her book published by ISEAS in 2023, Chinese Investments in Southeast Asia: Patterns and Significance, co-authored with Nan Liu. She will outline the carefully constructed dataset, and provide an overview of the regionwide, multi-sectoral analysis quantitative survey and analysis of key changes in Chinese investments in Southeast Asian economies over fifteen years, from 2005 to 2019. Additionally, she will provide a qualitative assessment of the geopolitical significance of these trends and patterns. This study creates a baseline understanding of more recent Chinese investments in the region. In the near future, when a feasible data series can be collated for the years from 2020, it will also allow sharper analysis of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on Chinese investments in the region.
About the Speaker
Professor Evelyn Goh FBA FASSA holds the Shedden Chair of Strategic Policy Studies at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of the Australian National University, where she is also Director of the ANU Southeast Asia Institute. Goh’s scholarship focuses on East Asian history, security and international relations, and she is a leading authority on Southeast Asian security strategies. […]
The TU Library collection includes a number of books by Professor Goh as well as books on Chinese Investments in Southeast Asia.
Students are invited to register at this link for the event:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/6017230869502/WN_qzceCIQDSkGan9dhp6Ua9Q#/registration
Professor Goh coauthored a policy briefing in 2021 that is an Open Access publication available for free download online.
Titled Chinese Investment in Southeast Asia, 2005-2019: Patterns and Significance, its introduction begins:
Southeast Asia’s growing economic linkages with and dependence on China for investment have generated political opportunities and strategic concerns in equal measure. However, recent discussions have tended to focus on infrastructure projects, especially those associated with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). This narrow focus can be misleading, and an understanding of the fuller picture of Chinese investments in Southeast Asia is necessary for those seeking to understand its significance and impacts. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not a new player in this game, having had a longer history of providing investment and aid in this region, particularly in support of independence struggles and civil and regional conflicts during the Cold War.
After 1990 and reflecting Beijing’s economic reform and internationalisation strategy, Chinese investment in Southeast Asia picked up gradually across varied sectors. Prior to President Xi Jinping’s unveiling in 2013 of what has come to be called BRI, Southeast Asia had already seen a turning point in the growing significance of Chinese investments during the global financial crisis in 2008/9. This report is part of a research project that analyses China’s contemporary influence in Southeast Asia by investigating the impacts of Chinese investment on domestic regime security and legitimacy. That larger project provides an important region-wide, multisectoral analysis that allows comparisons and facilitates policy calibration and focus.
In this first of two reports, we present the baseline quantitative survey and analysis of key changes in Chinese investments in Southeast Asian economies over the most recent 15 years, from 2005 to 2019, for which comparable data is available.
Region-wide trends Foreign investments in Southeast Asia (SEA) originating from China grew twentyfold during this 15-year period. This trend is more marked when we define foreign investments as including both ownership acquisition of specific enterprises, and service provision (such as construction contracts).
[…T]he first phase of rapidly expanding Chinese investments in SEA occurred around 2009-12, when temporary declines in other sources of foreign direct investment (FDI) following the global financial crisis coincided with Beijing’s ‘going out’ strategy encouraging international investment by domestic enterprises.
The second phase of rapid increase took place between 2013 and 2017, following the official announcement of BRI, which further enabled log-rolling outward investment from multiple Chinese enterprises. Indeed, the vast majority of very large (at least US$1 billion) Chinese investments came after the advent of the BRI in 2013 for all SEA countries except Vietnam and Myanmar.
Within these limitations, however, China has diversified its SEA investments across industrial sectors as well as host countries, laying a broader-based foundation for the potential impacts and influence of Chinese investment in the region. As Figure 3 demonstrates, from an earlier investment profile resting heavily on the energy sector in 2005-10, Chinese investments significantly diversified in scope in 2011-19, doubling in infrastructure, metals and other sectors.
In particular, the infrastructure sector’s average share of total Chinese investments in the latter period rose to 31%, slightly lower than the leading energy sector’s 37% share. The domain of Chinese investments also expanded: in 2005-7, they barely covered half the SEA countries and were concentrated significantly in Indonesia; but from 2008 these were spread across all ten SEA countries, with at least 70% receiving large Chinese investments every year. China’s growing SEA investment footprint results from greatly increased mobilizable Chinese capital as well as the proliferation of investment opportunities as the diverse SEA economies have undergone different stages of transition and development.
Distribution of Chinese investments in SEA It would be a mistake to regard all Chinese investments to be of one type. SEA is a large and varied political-economic landscape, and Chinese state-owned and private investors have pursued different purposes – commercial, political, strategic – when making large investments in this neighbouring region.
At the same time, SEA states and political and business actors have courted Chinese investments to fulfil combinations of goals related to power and profit, to different extents and with varying results. […]
Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore: These three key maritime SEA economies were the top three destinations, together accounting for 57% of total Chinese investments in SEA. Over the whole period, Indonesia retained its position as the top SEA destination for Chinese investments even though its share fell from 60% in 2005-7 to 20% in 2008-19. With the global financial crises, the Chinese investment profile in Indonesia switched from an initial concentration in service provision to include ownership acquisitions, coinciding with the relative decline of FDI from traditional external investors like the US and EU, in 2009-2013.
After the official launch of Beijing’s BRI, Chinese investments in Indonesia more than quadrupled from roughly US$2 billion in 2013 to US$8.5 billion in 2015, and from 2014, China ranked consistently among the top three external investors in Indonesia. Chinese investments also diversified across the energy, infrastructure and metals sectors. Much political attention has been paid to large infrastructure projects like the $2.4 billion Jakarta-Bandung Highspeed Rail and indeed this sector attracted a fifth of total Chinese investments. However, the energy sector accounted for the bulk— around 55% —of Chinese investments, mainly in coal and hydropower projects.
(All images courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)