Development Cooperation Through Maritime Silk Road: China’s Big Ambitions and Mixed Responses from Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia is a strategically important region for China’s Maritime Silk Road and the broader Belt and Road Initiative. As a signature foreign policy doctrine in the development domain, BRI has served China’s national economic and geopolitical interests of the “Chinese dream” and “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”, while using economic statecraft and development diplomacy to promote a Chinese vision of “community with common destiny.” Nonetheless, this nationalist strategy has intensified great power and regional rivalries, as illustrated by competing initiatives from global and regional powers such as the United States, Japan, and Australia. Instead of fully engaging with BRI or siding with China’s rivalries, regional countries have favored hedging as a dominant strategy with some variations and shifts over time. This chapter examines BRI footprints and responses in the region of maritime Southeast Asia. Through case studies of Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines, I demonstrate how foreign policy and domestic political considerations have shaped these countries’ responses to BRI. Changing ruling elite preferences, nationalist sentiments, and opposition politics have contributed to inconsistencies, reversals, and even renegotiations in BRI implementation across these countries.