ABSTRACT
China’s influence in and across Southeast Asia has steadily grown with its rising global prominence. Direct and indirect effects on the region from the Chinese Communist Party-state is unsurprising given geographic proximity and historically close political interactions. Efforts from China to influence politics and society in Southeast Asia are not a new phenomenon and follow from physical proximity as well as the large number of ethnic Chinese in the region. Ethnic Chinese communities in Southeast Asia have been targets for political mobilization by political groups from China since the late 19th century. China’s Communist government supported revolutionary communist movements in Southeast Asia leading up to and during the Cultural Revolution but reduced these activities following Opening and Reform from the late 1970s. Entwinement with China’s development plans gives Southeast Asian states other reasons for caution in their relations with Beijing. The political effects that follow from China’s investment in Southeast Asia are perhaps most striking in Cambodia.
