The emphasis on cultural connectivity in China’s growing presence and involvement in Southeast Asia highlights the importance China places on people-to-people exchanges as part of its global engagement strategy. The remarkable ascension of China over the recent decades has precipitated a proliferation of anti-China sentiments, particularly galvanized within the crucible of a “discourse war” with Western powers, as expressed in the latter’s “China threat” narrative. In response to such challenges, China has made substantial investments in cultural diplomacy, to augment its soft power through orchestrated global outreach initiatives. This article examines Chinese cultural diplomacy in the realm of entertainment, specifically “The Melody of Spring: Transnational Spring Festival Gala” hosted in Nanning, Guangxi, and disseminated globally each Chinese New Year. Against the legacy of China-Indonesia bilateral relations as well as Indonesia’s treatment of its Chinese minority, this study explores China’s cultural diplomacy and soft power in contemporary Indonesia. Through the case study of the “Transnational Spring Festival Gala”, this article posits that China’s cultural dissemination as an instrument of soft power has yielded little influence on the Indonesian public and has limited impact on the formation of a transnational imagined community.

China’s engagement with ASEAN over the South China Sea, from the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea to the ongoing negotiations on the Code of Conduct (COC), exhibits a dynamic continuum with two constants: 1. Dismissal of any legally binding instrument that would constrain China’s freedom of action; and 2. Persistent territorialization of the SCS despite Beijing’s simultaneous diplomatic engagement with ASEAN. The continuity is juxtaposed with elements of change in China’s engagement with ASEAN, as afforded by the former’s growing power and influence. This metamorphosis is manifested in China’s efforts to undermine ASEAN unity, robustly assert its claims in the SCS, and use economic statecraft towards ASEAN member states in return for their acquiescence. China’s more “active” engagement in the COC over the past three years is tactical and does not signify a fundamental change in its long-term strategy that seeks to eventually establish its sovereignty and control over the SCS based on the nine-dash-line (NDL). The divergent positions between China and some ASEAN member states on the COC, especially its scope of application, self-restraint elements, legal status and dispute settlement mechanism, are not easy to reconcile. The COC may end up being a non-binding political document with a general scope of application, which will have little effect in regulating the contracting parties’ behaviour.

In China's Public Diplomacy, Ingrid d'Hooghe provides a thorough analysis of how China's approach to public diplomacy is shaped by the country's political system and Chinese culture.

Will the nations of Southeast Asia maintain their strategic autonomy, or are they destined to become a subservient periphery of China? This book’s expert authors address this pressing question in multiple contexts. What clues to the future lie in the modern history of Sino-Southeast Asian relations? How economically dependent on China has the region already become? What do Southeast Asians think of China? Does Beijing view the region in proprietary terms as its own backyard? How has the relative absence, distance, and indifference of the United States affected the balance of influence between the US and China in Southeast Asia? The book also explores China’s moves and Southeast Asia’s responses to them. Does China’s Maritime Silk Road through Southeast Asia herald a Pax Sinica across the region? How should China’s expansionary acts in the South China Sea be understood? How have Southeast Asian states such as Vietnam and the Philippines responded? How does Singapore’s China strategy compare with Indonesia’s? How relevant is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations? To what extent has China tried to persuade the “overseas Chinese” in Southeast Asia to identify with “'the motherland” and support its aims? How are China’s deep involvements in Cambodia and Laos affecting the economies and policies of those countries? “This rich collection,” writes renowned author-journalist Nayan Chanda, answers these and other questions while offering “fresh insights” and “new information and analyses” to explain Southeast Asia’s relations with China.

This book observes and analyzes transnational interactions of East Asian pop culture and current cultural practices, comparing them to the production and consumption of Western popular culture and providing a theoretical discussion regarding the specific paradigm of East Asian pop culture. Drawing on innovative theoretical perspectives and grounded empirical research, an international team of authors consider the history of transnational flows within pop culture and then systematically address pop culture,digital technologies, and the media industry. Chapters cover the Hallyu—or Korean Wave—phenomenon, as well as Japanese and Chinese cultural industries. Throughout the book, the authors address the convergence of the once-separated practical, industrial, and business aspects of popular culture under the influence of digital culture. They further coherently synthesize a vast collection of research to examine the specific realities and practices of consumers that exist beyond regional boundaries, shared cultural identities, and historical constructs. This book will be of interest to academic researchers, undergraduates, and graduate students of Asian media, media studies, communication studies, cultural studies, transcultural communication, or sociology.

This book explores contested notions of "Chineseness" in Southeast Asia and Hong Kong during the Cold War, showing how competing ideas about "Chineseness" were an important ideological factor at play in the region. After providing an overview of the scholarship on "Chineseness" and "diaspora", the book sheds light on specific case studies, through the lens of the "Chinese cultural Cold War", from Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya, Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. It provides detailed examples of competition for control of definitions of "Chineseness" by political or politically oriented forces of diverse kinds, and shows how such competition was played out in bookstores, cinemas, music halls, classrooms, and even sports clubs and places of worship across the region in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The book also demonstrates how the legacies of these Cold War contestations continue to influence debates about Chinese influence – and "Chineseness" – in Southeast Asia and the wider region today. Chapter 6 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.