Relations Between China And China - 1605 Words

Another way of seeing political integration in ASEAN is to see how the ASEAN members deal with foreign entities and state. If political integration exists among ASEAN members, they will deal the problems collectively and unite under ASEAN. However, if they were to deal these issues individually as a state, there is a possibility that ASEAN had yet to manage in producing a strong political integration among is state members. One of the best scenarios that can be seen today is with regards to the claim over South China Sea (SCS) between several ASEAN members and China. From the outset, there are vast improvements on relations between China and their ASEAN counterpart mainly due to flourishing economic ties. However, within this prosperous†¦show more content†¦China’s claim is based on historical evidence which is the â€Å"Chinese nationalist map adopted by Zhou Enlai government in 1949 from the so-called â€Å"eleven-dashed line† map drawn unilaterally by Chia ng Kai-shek government in 1947† (Nguyen, 2012). The islands was so important to China that they had even go as far as building structures and military base in the area. Accordingly, the area is important to China as â€Å"Controlling the many tiny islands is in part a matter of controlling of the wealth assumed to lay beneath the sea in the form of unexploited minerals and oil and gas, not to mention the immense fisheries that exist in these waters. It is in part a matter of increasing the country’s sense of security, by dominating the maritime approaches to its long coast, and securing sea lanes to the open Pacific.† (French, 2015). French also state that China even blasted Vietnam protesting ship towards China’s action and ramped some small vessel from Philippines. The conflicts had begun even since 1947 after World War 2 and continue until today. This article however is not interested in the history of the SCS conflict but would focus more on how ASEAN and its state members solve the problem. Even with this conflict between China and several ASEAN state members, many would have expect that ASEAN would stand unite in this issue. However, there had been many conflicting statements made by the ASEAN state members as well as by ASEAN itself.