ISSN: 2222-6990
Open access
One of China's biggest interests is the Southeast Asia region as part of China's main focus in becoming the regional power of Asia. The ASEAN has become the most crucial part of China's geopolitics game as Malaysia and Indonesia control most of its important sea lanes for trade. On the other hand, ASEAN states such as Myanmar, Vietnam, and Thailand, which share borders with China, have become vital for their national security and economic land route. Thus, China wants to increase the dependence and reliance of ASEAN states in competition with Japan, the EU, and the US. During the starting pandemic of Covid-19, China approaches ASEAN states mostly through Infrastructural diplomacy to increase its soft power and economic dependency in ASEAN, as most ASEAN states are developing countries that require infrastructure building. As the results, China took matters on its own by adapting to vaccine diplomacy that left no significant competitors such as US or Japan. Thus, this paper intends to study China's adaptation of diplomacy strategy and its effects on ASEAN-China relations. The methodologies adopted in obtaining data for the paper are purely empirical and secondary. Therefore, this paper recommends a further study on China's diplomacy strategy in ASEAN states, with an emphasis on state corporations through economic diplomacy employs the full range of a state's economic tools to advance its national interests. Thus, this paper concluded that China vaccine diplomacy has successfully installed dependency and trust of ASEAN states through the vaccination supply and consequently increased its influence leaving other major power shut despite not fully obtain fully trust by other ASEAN states due to several demographic issues.
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In-Text Citation: (Zuhari& Supriyadi, 2022)
To Cite this Article: Zuhari, A. A. B., & Supriyadi, S. L. (2022). From Infrastructural Diplomacy to Vaccine Diplomacy: China Embarking on Strengthening the Soft Power in ASEAN. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences. 12(5), 1310 – 1325.
Copyright: © 2022 The Author(s)
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