my version

Comparing with China, any single member country of ASEAN is tiny. And ASEAN considers the rising of China is inevitable. So the ASEAN members are consolidating and speaking with one voice to face China to avoid the clear disadvantage otherwise.

After the cold war, China, USA and Japan have been the key factors in influencing the security situation in the asia pacific region. China and Japan are the two biggest regional countries both politically and economically and have a huge impact on the devolopment of this region. USA, which is the only super power in the world, has still indispensible influences as well. Militarilly USA and Japan are allies, so roughly there are only two forces in the south China sea: China and USA/Japan. One the one hand, ASEAN could exploit the relative weak position of China verses USA/Japan to gain points in the dispute over the South China Sea islands. On the other hand, whilst still trying to contain China, USA/Japan want to incorporate China into the international society to take more responsibilities. And ASEAN could also utilize the rising power of China to resist the dominance of USA/Japan in this region.

We should not foget that maintaining the peace and stability of the asia pacific region is the ultimate goal while dealing with big powers. In case that the peace and stablity of ASEAN is treatend, then there is no need to balance its position between big powers and could take sides.

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• soryy, lots of typos, use this one -lovchina- ♂ (1469 bytes) () 08/13/2009 postreply 06:58:32