ABSTRACT
Military intervention is one aspect of regional hegemonic behavior in which China is clearly not behaving in a hyperactive manner. Within Southeast Asia, no formal anti-Chinese coalition has formed, indicative of that region's hedging behavior. China does not provide security public goods the way other regional hegemons have, though definitional problems make it a difficult issue to resolve. The expatriate issue is one which has seen great change for China and its relations with Southeast Asia in particular; suspicions and controversies that once were serious impediments to relations in the 1949–87 period had largely disappeared by the 21st century. China is also not Brazil, which has been an active and fairly benign regional hegemon, or post-Apartheid South Africa. Nor does China seem to try to impose political systems on its neighbors the way the Soviets and the Americans did; stability seems to be the primary criteria that China applies to the political systems of its neighbors.
