Regionalism in China–Vietnam Relations : Institution-building in the Greater Mekong Subregion

Regionalism in China–Vietnam Relations

This book analyses collaboration in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS).

It explores inter-state cooperation and the role of subnational units (pro￾vincial and local governments) and transnational actors (NGOs, firms) in

building and maintaining the subregion. It also considers the relationships

between actors on the three levels, their influences within the structures of

decision-making in the GMS, their policy pronouncements and roles in the

GMS.

After exploring the historical background of cooperation in the GMS, the

author discusses how far cooperation in the GMS has developed from the

mere promotion of the national interest of individual states towards an insti￾tution as an independent actor able to influence relationships between its

member states, instead of only being influenced by them. Hensengerth scruti￾nizes the nature of GMS cooperation and the character and capabilities of the

institution of the GMS, exemplified by the bilateral relations between China

and Vietnam. Here the study combines the analysis of subregionalism and

institution-building in the GMS with an analysis of China–Vietnam relations

by combining theoretical approaches to regional integration, in the form of

the regime approach, with foreign policy analysis

This book will appeal to academics within international relations, Southeast

Asian regional and China or Vietnam country specialists.

Oliver Hensengerth is a fellow at Chatham House, London. His research

focuses on Chinese foreign and environmental policies, transboundary water

cooperation, and regionalization and international politics in the Mekong

subregion.

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19 Regionalism in China–Vietnam Relations

Institution-building in the Greater Mekong Subregion

Oliver Hensengerth

Regionalism in China–Vietnam

Relations

Institution-building in the Greater

Mekong Subregion

Oliver Hensengerth

First published 2010

by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada

by Routledge

270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2010 Oliver Hensengerth

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or

utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now

known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in

any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing

from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Hensengerth, Oliver.

Regionalism in China–Vietnam relations : institution-building in the greater

Mekong subregion / Oliver Hensengerth.

p. cm. – (Routledge contemporary Asia series; 19)

Includes bibliographical references.

1. China–Foreign relations–Vietnam. 2. Vietnam–Foreign relations–China.

3. Regionalism–Mekong River Region. I. Title.

JQ1499.A38R435 2009

338.959–dc22

ISBN10: 0-415-55143-9 (hbk)

ISBN10: 0-203-87238-X (ebk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-55143-4 (hbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-203-87238-3 (ebk)

ISBN 0-203-87238-X Master e-book ISBN

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.

To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s

collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

Contents

List of Illustrations viii

Abbreviations ix

1 Introduction 1

2 Explaining subregional cooperation: events, concepts and the

Mekong basin 6

3 Water cooperation, security and international regimes: an analytical

framework for the GMS 30

4 History of Mekong cooperation: from exclusion to inclusion via the

China–Vietnam dichotomy 47

5 Mekong basin cooperation: current development and institutional

arrangements 75

6 The GMS and foreign policy: The China–Vietnam dimension and

border cooperation 98

7 Conclusion: China’s and Vietnam’s foreign policies and

subregionalism in the Greater Mekong Subregion 142

Appendix 152

Notes 178

Bibliography 187

Index 209

List of Illustrations

Figures

5.1 GMS institutional arrangements 81

Tables

2.1 Growth areas in Northeast and Southeast Asia 17

4.1 Geopolitics and Mekong Basin development 72

5.1 Principle actors in the GMS 86

5.2 Members and observers of the GMS Working Group on

Environment 87

5.3 Institutional arrangements in the Mekong Basin 93

6.1 Guangxi’s major import–export markets (in 2002) 136

6.2 Guangxi’s major small border trade import–export products 136

Maps

1.1 The Greater Mekong Subregion xii

6.1 The China–Vietnam border in 1988 128

Abbreviations

ACMECS Ayeyawadi–Chao Phraya–Mekong Economic

Cooperation Strategy

ADB Asian Development Bank

AEM-MITI/METI Working Group on Economic Cooperation

AFTA ASEAN Free Trade Area

AKP Agence Kampuchea Presse

APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

ARF ASEAN Regional Forum

ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations

ASEAN-MB ASEAN–Mekong Basin Development Cooperation

ASEM Asia Europe Meeting

BBC British Broadcasting Corporation

BIMP-EAGA Brunei Darussalam–Indonesia–Malaysia–Philippines–

East ASEAN Growth Area

CAFTA China-ASEAN Free Trade Area

CCP Chinese Communist Party

CEO Chief Executive Officer

COMECON Council for Mutual Economic Assistance

CSCAP Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific

DRV Democratic Republic of Vietnam

EAC East Asian Community

EAEC East Asian Economic Caucus

EAEG East Asian Economic Group

ECAFE United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the

Far East

ESCAP (see UNESCAP)

EU European Union

FCDI Forum for Comprehensive Development in Indochina

FDI Foreign Direct Investment

FTA Free Trade Area

GMS Greater Mekong Subregion

GMS-BF GMS Business Forum

GT Growth Triangle

IMF International Monetary Fund

IMS-GT Indonesia–Malaysia–Singapore Growth Triangle

IMT-GT Northern Triangle, Northern Growth Triangle or

Northern ASEAN Growth Triangle (consisting of

Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand)

MRC Mekong River Commission

NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation

NEACD Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue

NGO non-governmental organization

NPC National People’s Congress

NT2 Nam Theun 2 Dam

PRC People’s Republic of China

QEC Quadripartite Economic Cooperation

RVN Republic of Vietnam

SEATO Southeast Asian Treaty Organization

SEPA State Environmental Protection Administration

SIJORI Singapore-Johor-Riau Growth Triangle

SRV Socialist Republic of Vietnam

SU Soviet Union

TAC Treaty of Amity and Cooperation

UN United Nations

UNDP United Nations Development Programme

UNEP United Nations Environment Programme

UNESCAP United Nations Economic and Social Commission for

Asia and the Pacific

UNO United Nations Organisation

UNU-WIDER World Institute for Development Economics Research

at the United Nations University

US United States

USA United States of America

USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

VCP Vietnamese Communist Party

WTO World Trade Organisation

x Abbreviations

Map 1.1 The Greater Mekong Subregion

Source: Asian Development Bank.

1 Introduction

Interest in the economic development of the Mekong River can be traced

back to the year 1866, when a French-headed group left Saigon for a Mekong

expedition to survey the river and use it as a trade route into south-western

China in order to connect Indochina with China. The Mekong expedition,

which lasted until 1868, is reported by Louis de Carné, one of its members.1

In the end, the expedition failed. The next attempt at Mekong cooperation

was the inauguration of the Mekong Committee in 1957. Member states were

Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam.2 The aim of the Committee

was to promote the economic development of the region, with the help of the

United Nations and the United States, in order to stabilize the fragile non￾communist governments against communist China. However, as this was a

Cold War exercise in a region suffering intra-regional problems exacerbated

by outside Cold War interference, the Mekong Committee quickly became

dysfunctional. In 1975, when Pol Pot seized power, Cambodia withdrew from

the Committee. It did not fail altogether, however, but continued to exist as

an Interim Mekong Committee from 1978. In 1991, the year of the peace

agreements to settle the Cambodia conflict, Cambodia rejoined. In 1995, the

Interim Mekong Committee emerged as the Mekong River Commission.

Three years earlier, in 1992, the Asian Development Bank had initiated the

Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS; see Map 1.1). The 2001 Agreement on

Commercial Navigation on the Mekong between China, Laos, Myanmar and

Thailand – the so-called ‘Golden Quadrangle’ or, formally, the Quadripartite

Economic Cooperation – was a further step towards reviving the old idea of

connecting China with the Indochinese region by making the Mekong a

commercial shipping route in order to transform the region into a cohesive

economic area.

This study is concerned with an analysis of collaboration in the Mekong

region, specifically within the GMS, which is a manifestation of the so-called

‘new regionalism’ in growth triangles in Northeast and Southeast Asia. It

explores inter-state cooperation and the role of subnational units (provincial

and local governments) and transnational actors (non-governmental organi￾zations, firms) in building and maintaining the subregion. It considers the

relationships between actors on three levels: their influences within the

structures of decision-making in the GMS; their policy pronouncements; and

their roles in the GMS.

The GMS is the only cooperation in the Mekong basin that includes all

riparian states of the Mekong (the governments of Thailand, Laos, Cambo￾dia, Vietnam, Myanmar and China’s provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi;

Guangxi was admitted to the GMS programme in summer 2005, ADB

2005b: 2). Regarding the creation of a ‘region’, Hettne argues that ‘nation￾states typically conceive it as an arena where national interests could be pro￾moted’ (Hettne 1999b: xxiii) before the respective area becomes ‘an actor in

its own terms’ (Hettne 1999b: xxiii). Thus, at least in their early stage, regio￾nal institutions are dependent on the national interest of their member states.

This study explores the historical background of cooperation in the GMS,

and discusses how far cooperation in the GMS has developed from the mere

promotion of the national interest of individual states towards an institution

as an independent actor able to influence relationships between its member

states, instead of only being influenced by them. It scrutinizes the nature of

GMS cooperation and the character and capabilities of the institution of the

GMS, exemplified by the bilateral relations between China and Vietnam.

Here, the study combines the analysis of subregionalism and institution￾building in the GMS with an analysis of China–Vietnam relations by combin￾ing theoretical approaches to regional integration, in the form of the regime

approach, with foreign policy analysis.

The outcome of regional institutions depends on the foreign policies that

members of this institution try to realize by cooperating in the multilateral

institution. This leads to the premise that, with regard to regional institutions,

central government policies have two dimensions: one concerned with policies

specific to the region; and one concerned with using the regional institution

for globally oriented foreign policies, thereby producing a strategic situation

in which the lines between foreign and domestic policies become blurred. This

situation reflects the ‘new regionalism’, which encompasses new concerns of

foreign policy: firstly, in the form of human security or, more broadly, non￾traditional security;3 and secondly, localized and transnational dimensions are

added to the foreign policies of central governments. Therefore, from central

government perspectives, regional institutions not only have the function of

tackling problems of traditional security (building confidence in order to

acquire problem-solving capacities, which enable member states to settle pro￾blems without recourse to military force), but also need to deal with human

security, including food security, environmental security, drug trafficking and the

development of local economies through transnational integration processes

for poverty reduction. The latter point is especially important for cross-border

cooperation along the China–Vietnam border.

As for Mekong cooperation, the transnational issue of water cooperation as

a source of GMS development (transport, energy and agriculture) enters the

scene of multilateral cooperation, with potential tensions between states, as

well as between states and NGOs, about how to use the seemingly abundant

2 Introduction