Hoang Thi Ha

on December 22, 2022

Hoang Thi Ha is Senior Fellow and Co-coordinator of the Regional Strategic and Political Studies Programme at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute. Prior to this position, she was Lead Researcher (Political-Security) at the ASEAN Studies Centre of ISEAS. Her research focuses on major powers in Southeast Asia and political-security issues in ASEAN, especially the South China Sea disputes, ASEAN human rights cooperation, ASEAN in the Indo-Pacific discourse, and ASEAN’s institution-building. Hoang joined the ASEAN Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam in 2004. She then moved on to work at the ASEAN Secretariat for nine years, with her last post being Assistant Director, Head of the Political Cooperation Division. Hoang holds an M.A. in International Relations from the Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam.

How Well Is China Advancing Its Interests in Southeast Asia?

A ChinaFile Conversation

By Gregory B. Poling, Sharon Seah & more on December 16, 2022

Xi Jinping traveled to Southeast Asia last month to attend the G20 summit in Bali before moving on to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Economic Leaders’ meeting in Bangkok. The meetings came on the heels of Premier Li Keqiang’s appearance at the ASEAN summit, where he repeatedly underscored the “shared future” of Southeast Asia and China. But what does that shared future look like? For 13 years, China has been Southeast Asia’s largest trading partner. Chinese roads, Chinese factories, and Chinese infrastructure projects have spread across the region. In early November, China and Vietnam signed 13 deals, following a trip to Beijing by the Vietnamese Communist Party General Secretary—the first foreign leader to visit after Xi secured his historic third term. Last year, the inaugural section of a $6 billion Laos-China rail opened in the impoverished nation. In Cambodia, China’s “help” in upgrading a strategically located naval base has generated years of speculation on Beijing’s motivation. As China continues to grow its role in the region, how well is Beijing advancing its interests and what and where do its interests diverge most acutely from those of China’s neighbors?

Sharon Seah

on December 16, 2022

Sharon Seah Li-Lian is Coordinator of the ASEAN Studies Centre and Coordinator of the Climate Change in Southeast Asia Programme at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.

Gregory B. Poling

on December 14, 2022

Gregory B. Poling directs the Southeast Asia Program and Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, where he is also a Senior Fellow. He is a leading expert on the South China Sea disputes and conducts research on U.S. alliances and partnerships, democratization and governance in Southeast Asia, and maritime security across the Indo-Pacific. He is the author of the recently published On Dangerous Ground: America’s Century in the South China Sea, along with various works on U.S. relations with Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, and Southeast Asia at large. His writings have been featured in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Wall Street Journal, and Naval War College Review, among others. Poling received an M.A. in International Affairs from American University and a B.A. in History and Philosophy from St. Mary’s College of Maryland.

Sophal Ear

on December 14, 2022

Sophal Ear is Senior Associate Dean of Student Success (previously Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs and Global Development in 2021-22) and a tenured Associate Professor in the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University where he lectures on global political economy, international organizations, and regional management in Asia. He previously taught at Occidental College, the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and the Maxwell School of Syracuse University. He has consulted for the World Bank and was Assistant Resident Representative for the United Nations Development Programme in East Timor, a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an Advisor to Cambodia’s first private equity fund, Leopard Capital, Audit Chair of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, Treasurer of the Southeast Asia Resource Action Center, Secretary of the Southeast Asia Development Program, and Corresponding Secretary of the Crescenta Valley Town Council. A TED Fellow, Fulbright Specialist, and Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, he sits on the boards of Refugees International (Washington, D.C.), Partners for Development (Silver Spring, Maryland), International Public Management Network (Washington, D.C.), and the Center for Khmer Studies (Siem Reap, Cambodia).

Ear is the author of Viral Sovereignty and the Political Economy of Pandemics: What Explains How Countries Handle Outbreaks (Routledge, 2022) and Aid Dependence in Cambodia: How Foreign Assistance Undermines Democracy (Columbia University Press, 2013), co-author of The Hungry Dragon: How China’s Resources Quest Is Reshaping the World (Routledge, 2013), and co-editor of a virtual issue of the journal Politics and the Life Sciences on Coronavirus: Politics, Economics, and Pandemics (Cambridge University Press, 2020). In 2021-2022, he was Chair of the Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Advisory Board of the Los Angeles County District Attorney. He wrote and narrated the award-winning documentary film The End/Beginning: Cambodia (47 minutes, 2011) based on his 2009 TED Talk, and he has appeared in four other documentaries. A graduate of Princeton University and the University of California, Berkeley, he moved to the U.S. from France as a Cambodian refugee at the age of ten.

Planting the Flag in Mosques and Monasteries

By Jessica Batke on December 13, 2022

Over the last few years, the Chinese Communist Party has physically remade places of religious worship in western China to its liking. This includes not only the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, but also other areas with mosques or Tibetan Buddhist temples and monasteries. Eight Chinese government procurement notices, issued between 2018 and 2021, show local officials seeking to sinify religious sites in Gansu, Qinghai, and Sichuan provinces, as well as in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

In most cases, the notices cite the “four entrances” policy, which seeks to bring “the national flag, the constitution as well as laws and regulations, core socialist values, and China’s excellent traditional culture” into religious sites. Accordingly, several of the local government purchasers sought flags and 12-meter-high flagpoles for mosques or temples. One notice from a county in Ningxia listed the books authorities hoped to “enter” into “religious activity sites,” including Xi Jinping Talks about Governing the Country and An Explanation of Religious Affairs Regulations, among others.

In one instance, a town government in Sichuan province wanted to architecturally alter the local mosque. The procurement notice calls for purging “sanhua” (三化), or “the three -izations,” referring to “Saudi-ization,” “Arab-ization,” and “halal-ization.” Given government-imposed architectural changes elsewhere in the country, this likely means that the town wished to remove domes, minarets, or any other such features deemed insufficiently “Chinese.”

List of Books Included in the 2019 Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Guyuan City, Pengyang County Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau ‘Four Entrances’ Religious Activity Sites Book Procurement Notice

on December 13, 2022

In 2019, the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Bureau of Pengyang county, in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, issued a procurement notice for books to be distributed to religious activity sites in the county. Supplemental material included a list of desired books. This is an abridged version of the supplemental document and includes only the book list. It is in its original Chinese.

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Chinese Government Procurement Network

List of Religious Sites Included in the 2020 Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, Wuzhong City, Tongxin County United Front Work Department National Flag Entering Religious Activity Sites National Flag Flagpole and Installation Procurement Notice

on December 13, 2022

In 2020, the United Front Work Department of Tongxin county, in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, issued a procurement notice for flagpoles to be installed in religious sites in the county. Supplemental material included with the notice listed 225 sites for flagpole installation. This is an abridged version of the supplemental document and includes only the installation site list. It is in its original Chinese.

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In China’s Diaspora, Visions of a Different Homeland

By Yangyang Cheng on December 12, 2022

At the beginning, there were songs. It’s the Monday after Thanksgiving. In the storied New England town, over a hundred of us had gathered for the candlelight vigil. After a fire claimed at least ten lives in a locked-down building in Urumchi, and thousands across China took to the streets to protest against the government’s draconian zero-COVID policy, solidarity rallies have blossomed in the diaspora. Many are organized by overseas Chinese students. I came to the one held on the campus where I work. We sang “Vast Ocean, Boundless Skies,” the iconic 1993 ode to freedom by the Cantonese band Beyond, followed by “Do You Hear the People Sing?” Someone suggested the Chinese national anthem, yet the crowd was reticent. Instead we chorused to “Songbie” (“Farewell”). Written by the Chinese maestro Li Shutong in the early 20th century, with a melody inspired by the Civil War-era American folk song “Dreaming of Home and Mother,” the evocative verse is a toast to camaraderie and lament on separation.