Sell the Cow and Drink the Milk: China's Community Building Discourse and Its Implications for East Asia

Despite East Asia’s efforts towards integration over the past two decades, political and historical antagonisms and sovereign disputes among powers and stakeholders in the region have greatly hindered the process. Besides direct conflicts among powers, this author argues that the difficult state of community building in East Asia is also the result of the securitization of economic integration by respective states in the region, particularly by great powers such as China.

Based on the concept of securitization developed by the Copenhagen School, this paper examines the case of China and how Chinese discourse in the new century has reshaped state relations in East Asia. Specifically, this author seeks to explain how China’s discourse on economic security conflict with its parallel discourse on the establishment of a harmonious regional order. The impact of China’s mixed discourse is to re-open the dual debates of Beijing’s peaceful rise vs. potential challenge and Beijing’s maintenance of status quo vs. lean towards revisionism. The debates entail the possibility of China’s re-introduction of a tributary-like system in East Asia, which has significant implications for state relations in the region.

The purpose of this paper is to explain how China plays a critical role in the regional community building process and to draw the connection between securitization and the development of integration in East Asia. This paper proceeds in five parts: part one lays out the main argument of how securitization influences community building and integration in East Asia; part two reviews Chinese foreign policy in the new century; part three traces Beijing’s discourse and its implications for regional integration; and part four elaborates on the implications for state relations in East Asia and the response of neighboring states towards China’s behavior.