China’s Reform Era Under Deng Xiaoping, 1978–1989: Impacts on China-ASEAN Relations

This chapter examines the political, economic, and strategic impact on China-ASEAN relations of China’s economic statecraft between 1978 and 1989, as manifested by Deng’s Reform Agenda. China’s Reform Era began in 1978 with Deng Xiaoping’s Four Modernizations, which focused on strengthening four critical areas of the Chinese economy: Agriculture, Industry, Defense, and Science and Technology. The Elder Statesman’s politico-economic foreign policy strategy contained three key elements: (1) ideologically, to break away from the communist straitjacketed thinking of the Maoist era which culminated in the disastrous Cultural Revolution (1966–1976); (2) economically, to modernize China through reform-oriented policies in agriculture, industry, defense, and science and technology; and (3) politically, to formulate a foreign policy that would ensure a regional environment in East and Southeast Asia friendly to China, one that would support stronger economic engagement between China and Southeast Asia. In short, Chinese foreign policy between 1978 and 1989 aimed to create a peaceful external environment that would facilitate the Beijing regime’s concentration on internal economic reform. This chapter argues that the major overhaul of China’s economy under Deng, his disavowal of support for regional communist movements, his positive view of ASEAN’s growing independence and neutrality vis-à-vis the big powers, and his desire to strengthen economic engagement with the regional entity, put China-ASEAN interactions on a positive trajectory despite growing power asymmetries between a rising China and Southeast Asia.