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China's soft – and less soft – power in Southeast Asia

Book review written by Nina Trige Andersen
China's Footprints in Southeast Asia
Forfatter: Maria Serena I. Diokno, Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao , Alan H. Yang (red.)
Forlag: NUS Press (Singapore)
When Barack Obama announced its 'pivot to Asia' strategy, it was not least a response to China's increasing influence in the region. In a new anthology, China's success in setting footprints in neighboring countries is assessed.

When Philippine history professor Maria Serena I. Diokno was invited as a keynote speaker to a panel on authoritarian tendencies in Southeast Asia at the International Conference of Asia Scholars in Chiang Mai, Thailand, last summer, she delivered an inspired and indignant speech on historical revisionism and strategic oblivion. incumbent Philippine Duterte government. One of President Rodrigo Duterte's main actions has been to forge close and almost unconditional ties with China, a country with which the Philippines has otherwise had a strained relationship for decades – not least because of the maritime territorial conflict. . .

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Nina Trige Andersen
Trige Andersen is a freelance journalist and historian.

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