2021中国对东南亚大陆基础设施和影响力的追求（英文）

Jagged Sphere: China’s Quest for Infrastructure and Influence in Mainland Southeast Asia GREG RAYMOND JUNE 2021 ANALYSIS 行业研究报告，服务于财经领域，整合发布高质量的财经相关领域精品资讯，提供各行业研究报告和干货。我们以微信公众号为基础，覆盖第三方平台为财经相关领域从业群体提供高质量的免费资讯信息服务。 我们的优势： 高质量的内容生产模式、多平台覆盖的整合营销服务、超百余万的高净值人群粉丝、专业、稳定的管理与团队。 旗下的矩阵号： 行业研究资本、行研资本、行研君、IPO智囊团、IPO最前沿、并购大讲堂、科创板的韭菜花、海外投资政策、海外置业政策、海外留学政策、海外留学、全球海外移民政策、番国志。 扫码关注公众号： 行研君 IPO最前沿 全球海外移民政策 报告索取请加：report08 商务合作请加：report998 JAGGED SPHERE: CHINA’S QUEST FOR INFRASTRUCTURE AND INFLUENCE IN MAINLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA ANALYSIS The Lowy Institute is an independent policy think tank. Its mandate ranges across all the dimensions of international policy debate in Australia — economic, political and strategic — and it is not limited to a particular geographic region. Its two core tasks are to: • produce distinctive research and fresh policy options for Australia’s international policy and to contribute to the wider international debate • promote discussion of Australia’s role in the world by providing an accessible and high-quality forum for discussion of Australian international relations through debates, seminars, lectures, dialogues and conferences. Lowy Institute Analyses are short papers analysing recent international trends and events and their policy implications. The views expressed in this paper are entirely the authors’ own and not those of the Lowy Institute. JAGGED SPHERE: CHINA’S QUEST FOR INFRASTRUCTURE AND INFLUENCE IN MAINLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA ANALYSIS 1 KEY POINTS • China has land borders with mainland Southeast Asia and strong strategic imperatives to develop land routes to the sea. It has both potential and motivation to pursue an infrastructural sphere of influence in the Mekong subregion through Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects joining southern China and mainland Southeast Asia. • The poorer states, especially Laos and Cambodia, have been receptive to the BRI and infrastructure investment, but Thailand and Vietnam, strong states and protective of sovereignty, have been more cautious. This means China’s impact is significantly varied across the subregion. • China’s Special Economic Zones (SEZs) in Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar are in some cases dissolving borders and in others carving out Chinese-controlled enclaves, all increasing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) presence and influence. JAGGED SPHERE: CHINA’S QUEST FOR INFRASTRUCTURE AND INFLUENCE IN MAINLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA 2 ANALYSIS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Mainland Southeast Asia is a region characterised by a vast asymmetry, between the state destined to become the world’s largest economy — China — and three of the world’s Least Developed Countries. This means the region risks being drawn into a Chinese sphere of influence. The connective infrastructure being developed across China’s borders and traversing mainland Southeast Asia has the potential to reshape strategic geography, as well as the regional economic landscape. Closely tied to state interests, China’s investment is carving out new transport routes to the sea — in the form of road, rail, and waterways — and establishing new nodes of control in the form of Special Economic Zones (SEZs). This paper assesses progress on these lines and nodes and finds a mixed picture. While the weaker governance of Laos and Myanmar means they are attracted to SEZs and vulnerable to Chinese investment and erosion of sovereignty, transport corridors are progressing more slowly. By contrast, Thailand and Vietnam are adapting to the Belt and Road Initiative in a way that serves their interests as much as China’s. Other external actors, most notably Japan, will continue to play important roles. China’s sphere of influence in mainland Southeast Asia therefore remains fractured and partial, as the strong states of Thailand and Vietnam seek to preserve the greatest autonomy possible. This finding will be of importance to policymakers seeking to understand how China’s geoeconomic policies are playing out among the smaller states of the Indo-Pacific. JAGGED SPHERE: CHINA’S QUEST FOR INFRASTRUCTURE AND INFLUENCE IN MAINLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA ANALYSIS 3 INTRODUCTION One evening in September 2019, my colleagues and I sat in a café in the northern Laos town of Luang Namtha. A car drew up and parked outside. Two young men got out and sat down for a meal. They spoke Lao and Mandarin fluently and had driven more than 3500 kilometres from the northern Chinese city of Harbin. China’s infrastructural network of 5 million kilometres of road, 146 000 kilometres of railroads, 20 000 tunnels, and 230 airports is increasingly connected to mainl