The Spatio-Temporal Evolution of Geo-Economic Relationships between China and ASEAN Countries: Competition or Cooperation?

Shufang Wang, Axing Zhu, Yuejing Ge, Yuli Liu and Xiao Xue
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Shufang Wang: Research Center for Energy Economics, School of Business and Administration, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo 454000, Henan, China
Axing Zhu: Department of Geography, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, 53706 WI, USA
Yuejing Ge: Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Yuli Liu: Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Xiao Xue: School of Computer Science, Henan Polytechnic University, Jiaozuo 454000, Henan, China

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 6, 1-21

Abstract: In the last 30 years, China’s economic power has experienced great changes and has brought about a profound impact on the world economy. This led us to ask a question: do changes in China’s economic power shift the geo-economic relationships between China and its neighboring countries? To answer this question, we researched the evolution of geo-economic relationships between China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. Using the Euclidean distance method, we explored the changes in these geo-economic relationships between China and ASEAN countries from 1980 to 2014. Our findings resulted in five conclusions: (1) Over time, geo-economic relationships between China and ASEAN countries remained relatively stable. (2) Geographically, the main geo-economic relationships between China and continental ASEAN countries were complementary, while the main geo-economic relationships between China and island ASEAN countries were competitive. (3) Geopolitics and geo-culture were attributed to the changes in geo-economic relationships. (4) The evolution of geo-economic relationships was characterized by path dependence. (5) Geo-economic relationships between China and ASEAN countries could be classified into four types: game type, with high cooperation and competition; complementary type, with high cooperation and low competition; fight type, with low cooperation and high competition; and loose type, with low cooperation and competition. Our findings contribute to improving the understanding of geo-economic relationships.

Keywords: geo-economic relationships; competition and cooperation; patterns and characteristics; China; ASEAN countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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