Seminar Report
Summary of the International Seminar on
“ASEAN-China Strategic Partnership: New Era, New Vision”
Vorawan Wannalak
PhD researcher, University of Potsdam, Germany IEAS Visiting Fellow (September 3 - November7, 2018)
The international seminar on “ASEAN-China Strategic Partnership: New Era New Vision”
was jointly organized by the Institute of East Asian Studies, Thammasart University in cooperation with the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Kingdom of Thailand and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand on October 22, 2018 at the Shangri-La Hotel, Bangkok. The background of the seminar was based on the importance of the 15 years of establishment of the ASEAN- China Strategic Partnership which has further expanded its cooperation agenda and contributed to regional peace, stability and prosperity. The objective of the international seminar was to enhance understanding of the achievements of the ASEAN-China strategic partnership over the past 15 years under the development of ASEAN Community in 2015, ASEAN’s development over the past 5 decades and achievements of China’s reform and opening up over the last 4 decades. The seminar aimed to pool fresh ideas on promoting ASEAN-China cooperation in various aspects, from politics, economy and culture.
The seminar was structured into three panel discussions: The first panel was titled ‘Prospects for ASEAN-China Relations in the Changing International Geopolitical Landscape’. The second panel was titled ‘Connecting the Connectivities: Synergizing ASEAN’s MPAC 2025 and China’s Belt and Road Initiative’. The last panel focused on ‘Enhancing education, culture, tourism cooperation to strengthen China-ASEAN People to People bonds’. The international seminar served as a platform for ASEAN and China specialists with different backgrounds. Panelists for all sessions were academics and scholars of ASEAN-China relations from Thailand, China, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kitti Prasirtsuk, the vice rector for international affairs, Thammasat University provided an opening remark for the international seminar. As the region is dealing with a lot of global changes, ranging from non-traditional security to traditional security, cyber security, terrorism, protectionism and other challenges, he stressed that China and ASEAN must work together to incorporate
and cope with these challenges. The ASEAN-China relations in the region were not only important within the region but had implications world-wide. Therefore, China and ASEAN can work for the good of the world and this international seminar could be a platform to pool fresh ideas in promoting ASEAN-China political, cultural and economic relations.
Keynote speech by the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the Kingdom of Thailand.
In the following, the keynote speech was given by H.E. Lyu Jian, the ambassador of the People’s Republic of China in the Kingdom of Thailand. H.E. Lyu Jian provided an historical outlook of the development of China-ASEAN relations. Over the past half-century, ASEAN has made efforts to explore and follow the development path that suits itself and has made remarkable progress. China and ASEAN-member countries are geographical neighbors. The two sides launched a pilot process in 1991 and established a strategic partnership in 2003. Over the past 15 years, China-ASEAN relations have developed rapidly in all manners and bared fruitful results. The ambassador stated the five key areas of success of the China-ASEAN relations as follows.
First, political mutual trust between the two sides is deepening. China was the first to join the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia and the first to establish a strategic partnership with ASEAN. China firmly supported the centrality of ASEAN in regional cooperation and accelerated development relations with ASEAN with close high-level exchanges, smooth policy coordination, and neutral pilot mechanisms in all levels and in all fields.
Second, the economic cooperation and trade between the two sides is steadily growing.
China was the first country to sign the Free Trade Agreement, which created the world’s largest free trade zone of developing countries. In 2017, the trade volume between China and ASEAN topped 500 billion US dollars, nearly six times higher than fifteen years ago. China has been ASEAN largest trading partner for nine consecutive years and ASEAN is China’s third largest partner for seven years, continuously.
Third, cultural and people-to-people exchange between China and ASEAN countries is expanding. In 2017, the total number of visits made by people from the two sides was 49 million. The combined amount of ASEAN students in China and Chinese students in ASEAN exceeded 200,000 and there were nearly 3,000 flights between China and ASEAN countries each week.
Fourth, security cooperation between the two sides is broadening. China and ASEAN countries have reached an agreement on a single draft negotiating text of the code of conduct in South China Sea and will continue their progress in fully and effectively implementing the declaration of conduct of parties in the South China Sea. The China-ASEAN joint maritime exercise was held at the end of October 2018, which marked further deepening of bilateral cooperation in the field of security and defense.
H.E. Lyu Jian further explained the reason for China-ASEAN relations to achieve extensive and rich results is that both sides adhere to the principle of equality, mutual respect, openness, inclusiveness and win-win cooperation, respect each other’s co-interests and major concerns and make accommodations accordingly. China-ASEAN has expanded and deepened pragmatic cooperation in all areas and all manners to achieve results by adhering to the principle of shared growth through discussion and collaboration under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI is gaining popularity and the out- come of compact cooperation has emerged. ASEAN countries as China’s neighbors and close partners for cooperation will certainly gain more benefits and China will always be ASEAN neighbor and trustworthy partner. In the future, ASEAN will be placed in important position to China’s overall diplomacy and give priority to ASEAN in China’s diplomacy.
As China is willing to take the 15th anniversary of the establishment of strategic partnership as an opportunity to continuously elevate the level of practical corporations and turn China and ASEAN into two engines, leading regional and even global environment. H.E. Lyu Jian proposed suggestion that China and ASEAN should commit to four aspects when pursuing further cooperation on the basis of past achievements. First, they should stay committed to political mutual trust. Second, they should stay committed to enhancing practical cooperation and synergizing the BRI with the ASEAN Community Vision 2025 and deepen trade and investment cooperation as well as advance cooperation in innovations. Third, they should stay committed to broadening security cooperation in the South China Sea and more cooperation should be carried out in the areas of counter terrorism, disaster prevention and mitigation and humanitarian assistance to jointly address security challenges and keep the region stable. Fourth, they should stay committed to strengthening people-to-people exchange. China-ASEAN cooperation in the fields of culture, science and technology, environmental protection and tourism should be strengthened. Thailand is an important member of ASEAN who has played a decisive role in the process of ASEAN foundation and development. Thailand is also an active promoter of ASEAN-China relations and maintains good cooperation with China within this framework. Thailand will assume the rotating chairmanship of ASEAN. China as a good neighbor, friend, and partner of Thailand will provide full support and look forward to unique influences in China-ASEAN relations.
Keynote speech by Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand
The second keynote speech was delivered by Dr. Suriya Chindawongse, Director-General of the Department of ASEAN Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Thailand. Dr. Suriya Chindawongse highlighted the word ‘new’ in order to look toward the future. It also implied that the ASEAN-China relations have always been dynamic, yet there are many things to do and develop. It is also important to realize that Southeast Asia and China are old friends with strong ties, cultural links,
and people-to-people collaborations over the years. China was a consultative partner with ASEAN and became one of the most dynamic and vibrant strategic partners in a short time. In his opinion, this reflects the strong mutual interests between ASEAN and China in developing their relations in such a high level. China as the first dialogue partner to the high contracting party to Treaty of Amity Cooperation in Southeast Asia is important because it provides rules and codes of conduct based on mutual respect, peaceful links, and all these important norms that underpin the international order. After China signed the Treaty of Amity Cooperation, many other countries later joined. In addition, China is one of the first countries to express its readiness to sign the protocol to SEAs nuclear weapon-free zone treaty which showed that China is willing to support this nuclear free zone in Southeast Asia.
Looking toward the future, Dr.Suriya Chindawongse mentioned the role of Thailand’s ASEAN Chairmanship in 2019 stating the relationship between ASEAN and China will continue to be cultivated because it’s in the interest of all sides for different reasons. For example, in the economic aspect, China is one of the first countries that pursued a free trade agreement with ASEAN in 2001 and over the past fifteen years that two-way trade volume has increased nearly 10 times from 55.2 billion US dollars to 514.8 billion US dollars. China has been the largest country in all categories in trade, investment and tourism. Thus, the economic ties between ASEAN and China will continue to develop and the important aspect of the economic interlink is connectivity issues. For ASEAN and China relations context, connectivity became a strategic concept since Thailand’s Chair of ASEAN in 2008-2009 which launched a master plan of ASEAN connectivity. This, of course, coincided with the bigger strategy of connectivity from China, particularly the BRI, in the regional and global context. However, the significant question is how to ‘connect the connectivity’ and how can ASEAN get the best out of the BRI and find suitable projects that can be linked, find strategic concept that can be mutually reinforced under the BRI and the MPAC 2025. The connectivity issue is not just economic and it has to do with building a greater understanding and strategic trust between ASEAN and China and between Asian-Pacific as a whole. In fact, at least from Thailand and ASEAN perspectives, connectivity is a driver of strategic trust and mutual interest in the broader Asia-Pacific region.
Although, people-to-people visits between China and ASEAN countries increased, however, the main important challenge in the region is transnational crime. Also, ASEAN and China need to work on the ongoing cooperation in the South China Sea which is an area of potential benefit that provides a win-win cooperation. The Asia-Pacific should have a stable, mutual architecture that is based on ASEAN centrality. ASEAN is a group of small, medium and one large country which have been instrumental in setting up rules that everyone is comfortable with. Therefore, the ASEAN-centered mutual architecture has become an important part of relations in the Asia-Pacific.
For the ASEAN Chairmanship of Thailand in 2019, the focus will be to build on past achievements, including this year in Singapore’s ASEAN Chairmanship, particularly on resilience and innovation. Furthermore, Thailand will focus on issues of sustainability in all aspects to ensure long-term solutions. In addition to many contributions to the ASEAN-China relations, Thailand has asked the China-ASEAN center to take a look at what are some of the important trends that, for example, relate to connectivity, ‘connecting connectivity’, for example, between BRI and MPAC 2025. The ASEAN-China Strategic Partnership will be the important element; important drivers of ASEAN try to look to the future.
The ASEAN chairmanship will be a practical one with focus on trying to build and strengthen regional architecture. Thailand plans to launch an ASEAN Center for Sustainable studies and dialogue which will help promote sustainable development cooperation in the region and drive sustainability mentality in the various aspect of the policy as one of the seven centers in 2019.
Prospects for ASEAN-China Relations in the Changing International Geopolitical Landscape The panel discussion began with Prof. Xue Li, director of Department of International Strategy at Institute of World Economics and Politics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, presented his views on ASEAN-China Relations in the changing international geopolitical landscape within the BRI. He argues that the BRI provide a big shift for China’s diplomacy from low to high. The dynamic of the BRI emerged from domestic dimensions. Peaceful cooperation is important for China and based on this China only focus on economic and culture. China is not intended to focus on military issue. For China, good relationship with neighboring countries is very important to help them become a great power.
That’s why China pays much more attention to the neighbor diplomacy. ASEAN and the South China Sea are part of the two corridors (out of six corridors) according to the BRI plan. Thus, ASEAN is such an important region for China to develop cooperation. However, concerning the geopolitical landscape, now there is a competition between BRI and ASEAN centrality. Discussions in ASEAN countries focused mainly on how ASEAN can maintain its centrality. This is also a challenge for ASEAN-China relations.
ASEAN has problems assigning countries which can take the “driver seat”. The cooperation is more on compromising option. For China, increasing its influences in the region through acceptable ways is very challenging. There are some suspicious feelings from ASEAN countries towards China, as they are more dependent economically on China and Prof. Xue Li called it structure challenges. One example is a proposal for railways in Thailand that is a competition between China and Japan and this shows a typical balance between two great powers. One suggestion is that China needs to pay attention to the sustain- ability of the BRI, especially when it implements the BRI in ASEAN, and should pay more attention to the quality of projects rather than the quantity. There is also a need for more civil projects. As China is a late-comer in the region. So, China needs to pay more attention to the national image of a credible and reliable great power country.
History of Chinese development is significant to understand China-ASEAN relations today, said Dr. Sarasin Weerapol, the executive vice president of Charoen Pokphand Group, Thailand.
He acclaimed himself as a scholar at heart and a student of Chinese development in historical and contemporary perspectives. He identified four different phases of transformation of China in the past fifty years. The first phase was in the 1970s, when China tried to come up with a solution to end ideological confrontations. The second phase was in the 1990s under Deng Xioping’s reform and opening policy.
China went through two decades of preparing itself to enter into the new international environment and it did very successfully. By the end of the century, China had entered the World Trade Organization (WTO) and within the context of ASEAN, China and ASEAN has created the world’s biggest FTA which finally materialized ten years later. The third phase of transformation was in the 2000s. The term China’s rise is known and that was the time China communicated in the world with trade by using the advantage of the WTO. China became the largest destination of FDI and the factory of the world. At the current phase of transformation, China now has moved beyond the biggest factory of the world and also has become the biggest market. China is no longer just sending out goods as an outsource destination, but is now promoting trade of the world for the benefit of their own citizens and their internal development.
However, he also addressed the problem of China’s rise; particularly the relations between China and the United States, which for the last fifty years fashioned itself as the essence of global order and created the architecture of the post-WWII global transformation. Furthermore, he emphasized that the ASEAN and China relationship is not ‘new’ as stated in the official declaration, but it has been a continuous development for fifty years after the opening of China. In addition, he added that the ASEAN countries and China need to involve Japan as part of their regional security.
Conforming to the historical development of ASEAN-China relationship, Prof. Dr. Chulacheeb Chinwanno, Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University, Thailand further explained that ASEAN and China have had a long engagement since the 1970s. First, there is a development of bilateral agreement between each ASEAN member country and China and multilateral agreement between ASEAN and China as a group. Malaysia was the first country to establish a diplomatic relationship with China in 1971, Philippines in 1974, and Thailand in 1975. ASEAN and China began the official dialogue partnership in 19th July, 1991 when the Malaysian government invited the Minister of Foreign Affairs of China to attend the 24th ASEAN Ministerial meeting in Kualar Lampur. Subsequently, China became a full-dialogue partner since the 29th meeting in the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting (AMM) in Jakarta. After attending the full-dialogue partnership in 1996, ASEAN-China relations developed quickly and operations expanded in all dimensions. At the 7th ASEAN-China summit in 2003 in Bali, both ASEAN and Chinese leaders announced and signed a joint declaration of strategic partnership for peace and prosperity with a plan of action. In the past 15 years, ASEAN-China cooperation has been deepening in security cooperation,
economic cooperation, and social cooperation. The future of ASEAN-China relations will continue upon previous norms. ASEAN and China will continue to share commitment and collectively responsible for enhancing regional peace, stability, security and prosperity.
However, challenges still need to be managed by both sides. Prof. Dr. Chulacheeb Chinwanno addressed the dispute in the South China Sea and proposed that both sides need to work together to achieve ‘SCS for SCS’, which he referred to as ‘South China Sea for Sea of Cooperation’. In addition, China and ASEAN have to tackle issues in the Mekong sub-region. China has already set up the Lancang Mekong Cooperation as the platform for further cooperation. Issues of resource management in the Mekong River are problems for mainland countries in which challenges have to be managed by the cooperation and also partnership between China and ASEAN. In addition, non-traditional security issue is the 2030 strategic partnership which will be agreed upon, especially regular consultations and information sharing as well as exchange of experiences to manage non-traditional security issues. To manage issues such as transnational crime, illegal migration, trafficking of drugs and people as well as cybercrime, preventive diplomacy has to be worked out by China and ASEAN in order to manage future challenges.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kuik Cheng-Chwee from the National University of Malaysia (UKM) presented three main points concerning the changing geopolitical landscape in ASEAN. First, he high- lighted the ‘geopolitics of connectivity courtships: balance of power by other mean’ as he argued that this is the balance of other powers by diplomatic means in conjunction with economic means, which had been driven by connectivity. Additionally, the context of China-ASEAN cooperation, the geopolitics is not limited only to the power interaction or the competition between two or more big powers, but also political dimensions in national politics and sub-state dynamics or sub-national points. Particularly in China’s BRI, it is not the function of the interplay the geopolitics externally, but it is the function of national politics and sub-state dynamics. For example, in the case of rail collaboration across Laos, it was very much driven by Laos’s national leaders and their desires to transform the country from landlocked to land-linked. Also, in the case of Malaysia national politics pushed Mahatair to review many of the China-related projects.
Secondly, a China-ASEAN partnership is important for the region and beyond. Over the last few decades when China pushed forward “the big umbrella” it implored other powers to do the same. This applies also to the BRI as other power players will also participate along the line, such as Japan’s Partnership for Quality Infrastructure, US’ Indo-Pacific Infrastructure Initiative and the EU’s Connectivity Strategy.
Thus, this is not just an economic issue but also a political issue. Economic interest is not new but their forms, mechanism and initiative for connectivity cooperation is largely new and recent. Third is the interrelationship between three pillars of cooperation. The first pillar is the U.S. led alliance system during the 1950s; the second pillar of ASEAN-led regional mechanism emerged during the 1990s; the third
pillar of China-centered regional arrangements and a web of bilateral partnerships. These three pillars are not autonomous, but rather work in conjunction with each other. China also found the second pillar very important and it has benefitted and grown through the second pillar within the context of the first pillar.
None of these pillars will be the standard but they do provide platforms where small countries can work together with both competition and cooperation as it also provides opportunities for countries to respect each other and find a more sustainable and mutually beneficial output.
Connecting the Connectivities: Synergizing ASEAN’s MPAC 2025 and China’s Belt and Road Initiative
On the issue of connectivity, Asst. Prof. Dr. Zhang Qun from the Institute of International Relations, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences explained the importance of ASEAN infrastructure connectivity projects as they reduce the gap of infrastructure disparity in the region. The benefits of ASEAN connectivity can be differentiated in three scales: within ASEAN countries, across the ASEAN, and across East Asia. Nevertheless, she further explained that the biggest challenges facing ASEAN’s Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC) 2025 and China’s BRI are mistrust and misperception.
Since 2013, after the BRI was proposed, there were many speculations about China’s motive and they emerged from the lack of clarity. There are some economic concerns related to importing foreign workers, technology transfer, environmental protection, trade balance, fiscal burden and small and medium enterprises. Also, political concerns have risen because of the absence of clarity from the Chinese government as well as social issues and public opinions over Chinese investment.
As explained by Asst. Prof. Dr. Zhang Qun, the BRI is an initiative proposed by China, and not its strategy, instead it is an initiative to establish a regional goods supply mechanism and to provide a platform of cooperation. Suggestions to synergize the MPAC and BRI are split four ways.
First, ASEAN and China should make joint efforts to strengthen mutual trust by promoting practical cooperation. Second, the Chinese government and companies should take measures to address the concerns in ASEAN countries. Third, ASEAN should establish the institutional framework for addressing the political, economic, and operational risks related to the infrastructure projects and it should protect investors. Last, ASEAN should play a proactive role in coordinating the various infrastructure initiatives to complement each other.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sompop Manarungsan, the president of the Panyapiwat Institute of Management (PIM), Thailand highlighted benefits gained from Synergizing ASEAN’s MPAC 2025 and China’s BRI. First, it will benefit in the area of transportation development. Second, it will help strengthening R&D to further develop technology and innovation. Third, it will enhance human resource management through people-to-people cooperation. And lastly, the BRI will provide ASEAN and China
According to Dr. Vannarith Chheang, associate Fellow from ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, he gave a critical comment that a discussion on ‘connect the connectivity’ should raise the question of
‘what’ to connect. As little clarity is provided about BRI, it is important to ask the question of to what extent and what kind of project should be under the label of the BRI project as most of the projects across Southeast Asia are agreed under the bilateral mechanism rather than multilateral mechanism. In his point of view, the BRI is an overarching initiative to connect to ASEAN and build a brand for China’s development projects or to multiply China’s presence in the region. Although there are the ASEAN blueprints, ASEAN does not have its own funding for the master plan of connectivity. Thus, it is a challenge for policy coordination and institutional connectivity between the ASEAN MPAC 2025 and the BRI as well as to materialize the connectivity project. In addition, there is a lack of policy coordination among the government agencies within the country in any projects, not only the BRI or ASEAN. Thus, ASEAN countries and China need to promote this local, national, and regional policy coordination.
Furthermore, the knowledge sharing or knowledge connectivity should be one of the key pillars because a less developed economy like Cambodia, Laos or Myanmar may lack the capacity and expertise, making them depends on foreign workers and support. The focus should be on people-centered-development and ‘quality’ infrastructure rather than ‘quantity’. Chinese investments in Southeast Asia have been criticized because of the rapid inflow of Chinese investment without so-called ‘quality’. Thus, China and ASEAN countries need to work together on how to build a positive image of China by strengthening the quality of infrastructure that puts people first. Currently, there are synergies and complements at the technical level, but at the political and strategic level, China still faces some trust deficits.
In prospect, China is not the only player in the region when it comes to the area of infrastructure; the issue of harmonization standards will be critical for ASEAN. Therefore, key players in the region need to sit down and talk about how to harmonize the compatibility of technology, systems and standards. Also, China and ASEAN can enhance cooperation in sustainable development in the region, as Dr. Zhang Qun’s response suggested that there are many possibilities for joint efforts, not just for infrastructure but also people-to-people linkage. Yet, the important thing is to build mutual trust as there are still some doubts and concerns over the BRI. Also, Dr. Vannarith Chheang proposed that the infrastructure connectivity projects should be resilient infrastructure, as it needs to include climate change and natural disasters in the planning.
Enhancing education, culture, tourism cooperation to strengthen China-ASEAN People to People bonds
Prof. Lu Jianren, Senior Research Fellow from the National Institute of International Strategy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences provided the overview of achievements in areas of cultural, educational, tourism and sport cooperation. First, official mechanisms were established, for example, China-ASEAN Ministers Responsible for Culture and Arts and China-ASEAN Education Ministers Roundtable Conference. In addition, the China-ASEAN expo has been held annually as a platform for China and ASEAN countries to organize people-to-people exchange activities. Second, an achievement in the area of cultural cooperation, China and ASEAN countries signed a China-ASEAN MoU on cultural cooperation in 2005. Third, in the area of educational cooperation, the number of exchange students by the two sides was over 200,000 in 2016. Furthermore, by May 17, 2017, China had set up 31 Confucius Institutes and 35 Confucius classrooms in ASEAN countries and they become an important channel for local people to understand China and learn Chinese language. Thailand has 16 Confucius Institutes and 8 Confucius classrooms and is ranked the first among ASEAN countries. The forth achievement is in the area of tourism cooperation, in 2016, there were more than 20 million traveling to ASEAN countries, more than five times the number in 2007.
Problems and challenges for people-to-people exchange in ASEAN were also raised by Prof. Lu Jianren. First, the level and influences of the cooperation are to be improved as people-to- people exchange between China and ASEAN remains at a relatively small scale and lacks cultural exchange events of significant international influence. Second, the non-governmental exchanges are to be enhanced. Third, the structure of educational cooperation is to be optimized. The current education cooperation between the two sides mainly for students of ASEAN countries in China has not extended to the areas of vocational education, trade skills and continuing education. Forth, the scope and depth of people-to-people exchanges are to be extended. Fifth, the understanding between people is to be deepened. There are frequent exchanges at a high-level (government officials, businesses, and academic fields), but at the grassroots level it is limited. From his views, he suggested the following solutions. The first is to optimize mechanism building, extend areas of people-to-people exchange;
second, ASEAN countries and China should explore cultural similarities and treat them with inclusiveness and trust; third is to pull resources for sustainable development on people-to-people exchange and all sides should take an active role in cultural exchanges; forth, both sides should enhance communication with innovative methods and abundant content; fifth, strengthen people-to-people diplomacy by emphasizing the role of enterprises as goodwill ambassadors; sixth, management in tourism should be reinforced and ensure safety of tourists.
Mr. Kavi Chongkittavorn, an ASEAN scholar from Thailand provided a visual presentation of the Thai-Chinese people relations as the most intensive case of people-to-people exchange between China and ASEAN countries. After the popularity of the movie ‘Lost in Thailand’, many Chinese tourists had visited Thailand. In 2018, the Ministry of Tourism and Sport expected 11,000,000 Chinese tourists in Thailand, which translated into on an average of 30,136 per day. However, the challenge for Thailand is the inability to cope with the influx of Chinese tourists and many practices are misconducted, such as the case of Thailand immigration scandal. Thailand has the largest number of Confucius Institutes in ASEAN because of the close relations between Thailand and China and their people-to-people exchanges.
The China Cultural Center was built in 2007 as the first in Southeast Asia. There are 4,000 volunteers teaching “Putonghua” and Thailand is the biggest regional center for Chinese media that provides the latest information and cultural knowledge. These are new phenomenon that Thai people should be aware of and learn how to cope with. He emphasized the importance for Thai students and Thai education to enhance knowledge on all aspects about China, not just acupuncture and language.
Concerning the Thai-Chinese people-to-people relations, Prof. Dr. Yos Santasombat from the Faculty of Social Sciences, Chiang Mai University, Thailand described characteristics of Chinese diaspora and explained that mobility is an essential part of Chinese people and their socio-economic life. This makes Chinese tourists unique as they are the new breed of mobile population. A lot of criticisms in Thailand towards Chinese tourists show a lack of cultural understanding on both sides.
In his opinion, mass tourism from Chinese people is not the problem but the lack of management.
Particularly, the Thai government only does promotion and advertisement but has limited policy initiatives, management, information sharing, or coordination between agencies.
Prof. Dr. Yos Santasombat showed the case of Chiang Mai University, which suddenly become a destination for Chinese tourists after the boom of the film Lost in Thailand. There are lots of problem with the influx of Chinese tourists. In 2014, Chiang Mai University started the program ‘This is CMU’
and set the point of information center and the tourist pay 50 bath and the provided transportation to visit designated areas. However, mass tourism for Chinese visitors and unregulated tourism operations can cause negative impacts in the local community. The problems lie under cultural learning and the root caused that prevents people-to-people understanding and appreciation is the unregulated mass tourism with an emphasis on commodity shopping which creates conflict with the community-based tourism. He urged both Thai and Chinese to understand tourism is a learning process. Cultural tourism with community- based management should be promoted and tourism enterprises need to be regulated more with sustainable policy.
Furthermore, to enhance non-governmental channel to promote people-to-people connectivity, Mr. Ardhitya E. Yeremia Lalisang, a lecturer from the Department of International Relations, University of Indonesia, Indonesia presented the case of the Indonesian Student Association in China. China is the first ranked study destination for Indonesians and the number rises to 14,800 students pursuing higher education in China. The organization has spread in 25 major cities in China and the association is called PPI Tiongkok. He illustrated the role of the Indonesian Student Association through a case study, that they issued a statement and officially reported Republika to Indonesian Press Commission due to the publishing of provoking news on China. In addition, the student association also established a news center to address the issues of faulty news concerning socio-cultural China. Thus, the association played the role of ‘cultural broker’ in the act of bridging, linking, or mediating between groups or persons for the purpose of reducing conflict or producing change. They also contest and question the political and cultural discourses of the states, the media and their families regarding China and Indonesia as well as play important role as the bridge between Indonesia and China and their strategic approach for people-to-people connectivity between Indonesia and China.