在老挝赢得东南亚运动会（已于去年12月举行）主办权后，中国主动提出帮助这个小国在首都万象郊区修建一座崭新的场馆。场馆设施包括一座游泳馆和一座足球场。但对老挝政府而言，中国的此类慷慨之举可不是免费午餐。
作为修建场馆的回报，老挝政府许诺中国苏州工业园区海外投资有限公司(Suzhou Industrial Park Overseas Investment Co)拥有万象郊区1600公顷土地50年的租赁权。但中方欲引进3000名劳工施工的消息，在老挝民众中掀起了轩然大波，老挝政府被迫将土地租让面积削减至200公顷，并承诺向中方提供别处土地，以补偿其损失。
从这件事中，我们既可以看出中国经济和战略实力所产生的吸引力（这一吸引力正将东南亚大陆国家更紧密地吸引到其周围），也可以看出相关国家由此显露出来的抗拒力。一些民族主义者担心，自己国家正沦为中国的卫星国（从许多方面来说，这些国家已不是第一次沦入如此境地），但这种担心正开始与其国家的经济和外交要务产生冲突。
在越南，中国人开采铝土矿的计划，已引发公众强烈批评；在柬埔寨，农民和渔民则担心自己的土地和水域正逐渐被中国人买光；就连几乎没有其他朋友的缅甸，也在用惶恐的眼光打量着中国日益提升的声望和自信。
发愁的并不只是东南亚人。多年来，该地区为跨国制造商提供了既廉价又可靠的劳动力储备。如今，西方投资者很难在中国盈利，而越南T恤或马来西亚硬盘带来的丰厚利润却能让许多跨国企业的资产负债表增色不少。
东南亚微妙的地区平衡所面临的威胁，在亚洲内外均得到越来越大的重视，尤其是考虑到越南、泰国和缅甸最近掀起了一波军购热潮——在这些国家，军方力量无一例外地与政治权力中心紧密相连。
亚洲各国民众与西方企业高管的担心，迫使该地区各国政府小心翼翼地在各方之间维持平衡。鉴于中国对指责声音非常敏感，这些政府不得不在安抚本国民众的不安情绪与争取中国好感之间"走钢丝"，同时还要让投资者放心。悉尼洛伊国际政策研究所(Lowy Institute for International Policy)的马尔科姆•库克(Malcolm Cook)表示："政界人士们公开发表的言论与民众心中所感存在差距。"
在许多方面，成为中国的邻国是一件幸事。从长期来看，中国崛起为大国赋予了东南亚一种与其经济影响力相称的、全新的地缘战略重要性。东盟(ASEAN) 10个成员国共有近6亿人口，国内生产总值(GDP)合计约1.5万亿美元。
去年，希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)站在泰国东盟峰会的讲台上对听众说："我们回来了。"她的话立刻让人们想起了小布什(George W. Bush)政府时期美国外交政策的那段"荒废的岁月"。但在许多人看来，近20年来美国的东南亚政策一直处在"冬眠"之中。参议院东亚及太平洋事务小组委员会主席、民主党人吉姆•韦布(Jim Webb)上周称，东南亚地区为"我们外交政策中被长期忽视的地区。其根源是，我们在界定美国与不同国家、不同政体关系的基本参数时所使用的各项标准，常常相互矛盾。这些标准我们过去使用过，现在也仍在使用。"
中国乐意慷慨解囊，同时又不附加令人头疼的人权条件，这也令它在这个民主根基极不牢固的地区颇受欢迎。相比之下，美国在提供援助时，一般都会附加此类条件。其结果是：中国、印度、日本和美国四个区域性大国为对该地区施加影响力展开了新一轮竞争。
新加坡国立大学(National University of Singapore)教授马凯硕(Kishore Mahbubani)表示："东盟正在经历历史上最甜蜜的时期之一，因为有四位追求者对它感兴趣。假如这是场军事之争，这里就会变成战场，但如果是场经济之争，对东南亚而言就是件好事。"
今天，美国比以往更愿意与该地区国家接触，而不再在乎它们是否为民主国家——抵消中国的影响是当务之急，尤其是在缅甸问题上。分析人士表示，缅甸军政府乐于接受美国的友好姿态，这在很大程度上是因为该国军方渴望制衡中国影响。
从短期来看，中国经济成就的邻近效应，已减弱了全球金融危机的冲击；中国大手笔的国内刺激计划，也影响到了其南部边境之外，对东南亚经济起到了提振作用。
最明显的例证，是缅甸、老挝和越南临近中国边境地区充斥的那些花天酒地的赌场和高尔夫球场：那里有24小时霓虹闪烁的娱乐表演，醉醺醺的中共官员与黑社会和企业家们勾肩搭背，每注牌的赌注都有上万元人民币。
在缅中边境的许多城镇，中国游客很难感觉自己身在异乡；店主们对人民币的喜爱程度超过了本国货币，移动服务提供商是中国电信(China Telecom)；此外，不止一家旅馆的房间号码全部以"8"开头——这是中国赌徒们的幸运数字。
但这片繁荣景象对经济的影响并没有看上去那么大。尽管中国作为贸易伙伴国的重要性与日俱增，但面对东南亚新兴国家的出口，它只能消化其中的不到四分之一；而且对该地区许多国家而言，中国还是一个直接竞争者。（就连那些赌场也大多为中国人所有，赌场的大部分管理员、酒吧员工和娼妓也都是从中国境内招来的。）
对多数东南亚国家而言，随着中国吸引力的增强，它最终也许会吞噬掉它们的经济和社会，这让成为中国邻国的好处减色不少。洛伊的库克表示："人们的一个担忧是，中国将抢走该地区的产业链，吞掉东南亚的蛋糕。"
这种担忧源自这些国家的历史。"它们与中国有不少陈年旧账，"曼谷国际和安全研究所(Institute of International and Security Studies)主任提塔南•蓬苏迪拉克(Thitinan Pongsudhirak)表示。"东南亚地区几乎每个国家的共产党叛乱，中共都曾予以支持。"
过去50年，亚太许多地区都爆发过反华浪潮：1967年，缅甸爆发了反华骚乱；1979年中越战争结束后，数十万华人逃离越南；在印度尼西亚，许多华人在1969年的骚乱中遇害，1989年，同样的悲剧又再一次上演；最近一次发生在去年的巴布亚新几内亚，一些中国商店被烧成了灰烬。
印度尼西亚已采取行动，推迟在一些重要领域履行《中国-东盟自由贸易协定》(ACFTA)，尤其在钢铁和纺织品领域。去年10月，该国指责中国倾销钉子，并对从中国进口的钉子征收145%的惩罚性关税。
就自身而言，北京方面十分在意自己对邻国产生的影响，在涉足该地区事务时尽量小心谨慎。在中国领导人与东盟领导人会面时，北京方面通过精心的安排来确保双方平起平坐的形象。中国去年展开魅力攻势，总共向东盟各国提供了250亿美元资金：150亿美元贷款（其中包括67亿美元的优惠贷款），以及100亿美元的投资基金。
去年12月，中国国家副主席习近平出访亚洲四国，在缅甸重申了对缅政府的支持，并签署了多项合作协议，其中包括修建一条直通中国云南省心脏地带的油气管道。在柬埔寨——中国是其最大的投资国——习近平签署了价值12亿美元的协议。而就在此前两天，柬埔寨当局不顾国际压力，驱逐了20名寻求避难的维吾尔人——中国政府怀疑这些人参与了去年7月份的新疆骚乱。
尽管如此，东南亚发生暴力冲突的可能性依然存在，尤其是在西沙群岛和南沙群岛问题上。文莱、中国、台湾、马来西亚、菲律宾和越南均宣称对这些群岛拥有全部或部分主权。
最近，北京方面在南海问题上表现得更加强硬——据信，该海域拥有大量油气储备。新年前夕，中国宣布了将西沙打造成"世界一流"旅游目的地的计划，引发了越南的强烈反应。去年3月，中国派出"中国渔政311船"（中国最大的渔政船）前往南海海域宣示主权，以此回应一些国家的领土侵犯——马来西亚官员频繁登陆南沙群岛岛礁就是其中一例。
还有一些迹象表明，东南亚正重整军备。越南最近宣布，将从俄罗斯购买6艘基洛级潜艇和12架喷气式战斗机。缅甸也一直在购买俄罗斯战机。泰国也已拨款购买新战斗机，以重新装备其空军。
东南亚内部充斥着原始民族主义、资源竞争和各式政体，是一个潜在的"火药桶"。除了民主制，该地区的政体还包括文莱的君主专制、缅甸的军事独裁统治、以及老挝和越南的共产主义体制。
无论是中国的崛起，还是美国再次表现出的兴趣，都在改变一个达成谅解的亚洲在越战之后大体维持的势力平衡。正如马凯硕教授所言，如果竞争仅限于经济领域，那么它可能会给整个地区带来好处，但没人能保证竞争会局限在经济领域内。
就像曼谷的提塔南所说的："一些中国人认为，中国昔日的身份曾是该地区的宗主国。这里是他们的后院，而且他们觉得，昔日的格局正在重现。"
译者/何黎
When Laos won its bid to host last month's South-East Asian Games, China offered to help the tiny nation by building a gleaming new venue on the outskirts of the capital Vientiane. The facility included a "natatorium" for swimming and a stadium for soccer. But for the Laotian government, such generosity would not come cheaply.
China's Suzhou Industrial Park Overseas Investment Co was promised a 50-year lease on 1,600 hectares of land on the outskirts of the capital in return for building the venue. But an exceptional public backlash, fuelled by news that the Chinese intended to bring in 3,000 labourers to do the job, forced the government to cut the size of the concession to 200 hectares and promise to find extra land elsewhere to compensate for the loss.
The episode illustrates both the gravitational pull exerted by China's economic and strategic might, drawing the nations of continental south-east Asia into a tighter orbit, and the countervailing tensions that are becoming apparent as a result. Economic and diplomatic imperatives are starting to clash with nationalist fears of becoming – in many cases not for the first time – satellites of Beijing.
In Vietnam, Chinese plans to mine bauxite have run into heavy public criticism; in Cambodia, farmers and fishermen are worried that their land and water are being bought up; even in Burma, which has few other friends, China's growing stature and self-confidence are being watched with a degree of trepidation.
It is not just within the region that there are worries. For years, south-east Asia has provided a cheap and dependable reservoir of labour for international manufacturers. While western investors struggle to make a profit in China, the fat margins on Vietnamese T-shirts or Malaysian hard drives have boosted many a multinational's balance sheet.
The threat to the delicate regional balance is being taken increasingly seriously both within Asia and outside, particularly given a flurry of recent arms purchases by Vietnam, Thailand and Burma: all countries where the military sit close to the centre of political power.
The fears on the streets of Asian capitals and in the boardrooms of the west have forced the governments of the region into a delicate balancing act. Given China's sensitivity to criticism, they are having to tread a fine line between placating the concerns of their citizenry and keeping Beijing on side, while also reassuring investors. "There is a difference between what the politicians say in public and what the population feels," says Malcolm Cook at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney.
In many ways, China's proximity is a blessing for its neighbours. In the longer term, the rise of China as a power has given south-east Asia a renewed geostrategic relevance in keeping with its economic heft. The 10 members of the Association of South East Asian Nations comprise nearly 600m people and have a combined gross domestic product of some $1,500bn (€1,065bn, £925bn).
When Hillary Clinton stood on a podium at an Asean summit in Thailand last year and told her audience, "We're back," her immediate reference was to the wilderness years of US foreign policy under the administration of George W. Bush. But for many, America's south-east Asia policy has been in a torpor for almost two decades. Jim Webb, Democratic chairman of the Senate subcommittee on east Asian and Pacific affairs, this week described the region as "a long-overlooked area of our foreign policy, rooted in the often contradictory standards we have used in the past and still use today in defining the underlying parameters of our relationships with different countries and different governmental systems".
China's willingness to spread its largesse without the troublesome conditions regarding human rights that Washington commonly appends to its assistance has also been welcomed in a region that has a rocky relationship with democracy. The result is a renewed competition for influence among the four regional powers: China, India, Japan and the US.
"Asean is going through one of its sweetest moments in its history because it has four suitors interested in it," says Kishore Mahbubani, a professor at the National University of Singapore. "It could be a battlefield if the competition is military, but if it is economic it will be wonderful for south-east Asia."
Today, the US is more willing than before to engage with the region regardless of democratic credentials – and countering the influence of China is high on the agenda, particularly in the case of Burma. Much of the enthusiasm of the Burmese junta in welcoming US overtures is driven, say analysts, by the generals' desire to counterbalance the Chinese influence.
In the short term, proximity to Chinese economic success has taken some of the edge off the impact of the global financial crisis; the largesse of China's domestic stimulus programme is also spilling over its southern border to help buoy the economies of the region.
The most obvious manifestation is the gaudy tide mark of casinos and golf courses that clings to the border through Burma, Laos and Vietnam: 24-hour neon-lit extravaganzas where tipsy Chinese apparatchiks rub shoulders with gangsters and entrepreneurs to risk tens of thousands of renminbi on the turn of a card.
In many towns along the China-Burma border, there is little to tell travellers they are not in China; shopkeepers prefer renminbi to the local currency, the mobile telephone service comes from China Telecom and, in at least one hotel, all the room numbers start with eight – a lucky number for Chinese gamblers.
But the economic effect of the boom is less than it might seem. Although China is growing in importance as a trading partner, it still accounts for less than one-quarter of the consumption of emerging east Asia's exports and for many countries it is a direct competitor. (Even the casinos are mostly Chinese-owned and most of the croupiers, bar staff and prostitutes are recruited from across the border.)
For much of south-east Asia, the benefits of China as a neighbour are tempered with foreboding that as its gravitational pull increases, it might ultimately suck in their economies and societies. "One of the fears is that China will take over the regional production chain: that it will swallow south-east Asia's lunch," says Mr Cook of the Lowy Institute.
It is a fear that is informed by the nations' history. "They have a lot of baggage with China," says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of International and Security Studies in Bangkok. "The Communist party of China has been supportive of local communist insurgencies in almost all countries in the region."
Anti-Chinese feeling has boiled over in a number of places in Asia- Pacific in the past 50 years: there were anti-Chinese riots in Burma in 1967; hundreds of thousands of ethnic Chinese fled Vietnam in the wake of the Sino-Vietnamese war in 1979; dozens of Chinese were killed in riots in Indonesia in 1969 and again in 1998; most recently, Chinese businesses were burnt to the ground in Papua New Guinea last year.
Indonesia has moved to delay the implementation of the China-Asean Free Trade Agreement in important areas, particularly steel and textiles, and in October accused China of dumping nails and imposed a punitive tariff of 145 per cent on its shipments.
F or its part, Beijing is sensitive to the effect it is having on its neighbours and has tried to step lightly in the region. When the Chinese and Asean leaderships meet, careful choreography ensures they are portrayed as equals. China, on a charm offensive, last year offered a total of $25bn to Asean nations: $15bn in loans, including $6.7bn in preferential credit, as well as a $10bn investment fund.
Last month Xi Jinping, China's vice-president and heir apparent to Hu Jintao, took a swing through Asia, stopping in Burma to reaffirm support for the regime and sign a slew of co-operation pacts, including a deal to build an oil and gas pipeline to the heart of China's Yunnan province. In Cambodia, where China is the biggest foreign investor, Mr Xi signed $1.2bn worth of deals, just two days after the Cambodian authorities defied international pressure to deport 20 Uighur asylum-seekers whom China suspected of involvement in July's unrest in the province of Xinjiang.
In spite of all this, the potential still exists for violent confrontation in south-east Asia, particularly over the Paracel and Spratly Islands, which are claimed in all or in part by Brunei, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
Beijing has recently become more assertive in the South China Sea, which is believed to hold large oil and gas reserves. On new year's eve it announced plans to make the Paracels a "top-class" tourist destination, provoking a sharp response from Vietnam. Last March it dispatched China Yuzheng 311, the largest ship in its fisheries protection fleet, to the South China Sea to fly the flag in response to incursions including a number of landings among the atolls of the Spratlys by officials from Malaysia.
There are also signs that south-east Asia is rearming. Vietnam recently announced that it would buy six Kilo-class submarines and 12 fighter jets from Russia, Burma has been shopping for Russian combat aircraft and Thailand has allocated money to re-equip its air force with new fighters.
Internally, south-east Asia is a potentially toxic mix of raw nationalism, resource competition and a kaleidoscope of political systems that, democracy aside, ranges from absolute monarchy in Brunei via military dictatorship in Burma to the communist regimes of Laos and Vietnam.
Both the rise of China and renewed US interest are altering the balance of an entente asiatique that has broadly held since the end of the Vietnam war. If the competition is economic it could, as Prof Mahbubani says, be good for the region, but there are no guarantees that rivalries can be contained within the economic sphere.
As Mr Thitinan in Bangkok puts it: "Some Chinese think their role in the past was as an imperial power in this region. This is their back yard and they see a pattern of the past coming true again."
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001031165
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