Southeast Asian states align with China partly based on Confucian cultural affinity

Evidence

As a consequence of this image of world order, the Chinese propensity toward bandwagoning in domestic politics also exists in international relations. The degree to which it shapes the foreign policies of individual states tends to vary with the extent they share in Confucian culture and with their historical relationships with China. Korea culturally has much in common with China and historically has tilted toward China. For Singapore communist China was an enemy during the Cold War. In the 1980s, however, Singapore began to shift its position and its leaders actively argued the need for the United States and other countries to come to terms with the realities of Chinese power. With its large Chinese population and the anti-Western proclivities of its leaders, Malaysia also strongly tilted in the Chinese direction. Thailand maintained its independence in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by accommodating itself to European and Japanese imperialism and has shown every intention of doing the same with China, an inclination reinforced by the potential security threat it sees from Vietnam. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 641

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to balance-of-power vs bandwagoning debates in international relations theory (Waltz, Schweller).