Under Beijing's Shadow

Murray Hiebert is a senior associate of the Southeast Asia Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C. He earlier served as senior adviser and deputy director of the CSIS Southeast Asia Program. Prior to joining CSIS, Hiebert was senior director for Southeast Asia at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Earlier, he was a journalist in the China bureau of the Wall Street Journal. Prior to his posting to Beijing, he worked for the Wall Street Journal Asia and the Far Eastern Economic Review in Washington, reporting on U.S.-Asia relations. From 1995 to 1999, he was based in Kuala Lumpur for the Far Eastern Economic Review. In the early 1990s, he was based in Hanoi for the Review. He joined the Review's Bangkok bureau in 1986, covering developments in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Hiebert is the author of two books on Vietnam, Chasing the Tigers (Kodansha, 1996) and Vietnam Notebook (Review Publishing, 1993).

The Trump administration's foreign policy approach was protectionist and bilateral, creating uncertainty as to whether the US would assist vulnerable neighboring nations by constraining China, the world's rising power. Hiebert (Center for Strategic and International Studies) asks how Southeast Asian nations have fared meanwhile. He has extensive journalistic experience in Southeast Asia and China, and bases the volume on interviews with principals, regional surveys, and traditional and social media. An introduction recounts diverse experiences of the nations involved with China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Each of the next 10 chapters is a case study of an ASEAN member, describing its history, type of government, proximity to China, size of economy, and relations with external states (e.g., the US). A concluding chapter explains how China exploits competition and distrust among ASEAN states "working with each of them bilaterally ... to 'divide and conquer' and play them off against each other" as in the South China sea conflict. The credible advice is that leaders should share knowledge and forge a multilateral policy toward China shared across the Southeast Asian region. Recommended.