China, Japan, and Southeast Asia

This chapter examines how political actors in China and Japan engaged in state identity politics in relation to Southeast Asia, focusing on the ASEAN Plus Three (APT). In China, Jiang Zemin assumed leadership with limited power consolidation under a pre-arranged collective leadership structure and derived legitimacy primarily from his mandate to continue Deng’s reform agenda. As part of the domestic politics of assertion , he promoted the identity of a responsible great power to strengthen his domestic authority by gaining recognition from external actors, including the United States, ASEAN, and Russia. Although initially intended to bolster his domestic position, this identity later facilitated deeper Chinese engagement with APT and reshaped Beijing’s perception of Southeast Asia, shifting from viewing it as an extension of US influence to recognising it as a valued partner. In Japan, there was broad consensus that Southeast Asia should not evolve into an exclusionary East Asian bloc hostile to the West. This high level of domestic homogeneity enabled coordinated international politics of assertion among the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI, formerly MITI), the Ministry of Finance (MOF), and MOFA, with the bridge between East and West identity dominating APT policy. Japan’s initial reluctance toward APT eased when it came to see its value not as an anti-West bloc but as a mechanism for institutional balancing in response to China’s growing influence. Later, Japan supported the East Asia Summit, viewing it as an even better institutional platform that aligned with its bridge identity. In this case, Japanese actors pursued international politics of assertion , while Chinese actors focused on domestic rivalries, producing turbulence but keeping the bilateral relationship manageable.