The 21st Century Maritime Silk Road And China’s Engagement With Asean : Is It China’s Shift Fromuse Of Hard Power To Strategic Smart Power With Chinese Characteristics?

One of emerging central claims in the field of International Cooperation as regards to Chinese engagement with ASEAN countries is that China has conceptualized and developed the 21 st Century Maritime Silk Road (NMSR) as a strategy of strategic shift from the total use of hard power tools to deployment of a combination of both hard and soft power tools as new mechanisms of engagement with ASEAN with the aim of consolidating Chinese influence over ASEAN so as to reduce serious tensions over territorial disputes in South China Sea.Drawing on the significance of the 21 st Century Maritime Silk Road and the theoretical perspectives of hard power and soft power, this paper argues that there is a realization on the part of China that it is for its own strategic benefit not only to rely on the use of hard power strategies as mechanisms of engagement with ASEAN, but rather move towards a combined use of hard and soft power tools if it were to gradually reduce tensions over territorial disputes in South China Sea.This combined use of hard and soft power mechanisms in its engagement with ASEAN through the NMSR is what the researcher regards asStrategic Smart Power with Chinese Characteristics.The logic of Strategic Smart Power with Chinese Characteristics is that the aspect of soft power strategies in it could be utilized by Chinato attract ASEAN countries into its economic and political zone of influence so as to peacefully persuade and attract ASEAN to reduce tensions and solve territorial sea disputes through bilateral approaches.The hard power strategies in the strategic smart power as defined in terms of economic benefits are used as carrots for ASEAN to engage more with China than the U.S, while the developing Chinese Military orientation in the Sea is deployed as counter-balance to the U.S's strategic military alliance andthe buildup of military arsenal in South China Sea.Through the 21 st Century MSR, the paper argues that China is shifting from the full use of hard power tools of engagement with ASEAN to usage of strategic smart power for purposes of advancing its own political and economic agenda in line with the geopolitics of South China Sea.Through the analysis in this paper, the researcher has critically explored and evaluated the issue of distinguishing clear signs of Chinese hard power and soft power in its engagement with ASEAN countries in South China Sea through the joint implementation of the NMSR.The paper has therefore argued that use of smart power by China as a strategic of deepening its economic and political engagement with ASEAN through NMSR is only a self-serving mechanism aimed at achieving its own geopolitical interests in South China Sea.The dichotomy that is there between use of hard and soft power is in its totality a contradiction to Chinese dream of establishing a peaceful environment in the South East Asia for economic development and prosperity.Notwithstanding the need to use NMSR as a strategy for resolving long term territorial disputes in SCS, the researcher argues that that the conception of shift from deployment of hard power to strategic smart powerwill not be an easy matter for China, since within the calculus of its engagement with ASEAN countries, the U.S brings into the equation an aspect of hard power to protect its own geopolitical and security interests.It is this U.S's deployment of hard power mechanisms that has motivated China to develop its strategic smart power through NMSR as a new strategy of engagement with ASEAN in anticipation that the soft power aspect could gradually suffocate U.S's influence over ASEAN while the hard power aspectscould counter-balance the U.S military alliance and buildup of military arsenal.

Topic: International Maritime Law Issues
Subfield: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences