China-Singapore relations under East Asia Regionalism: A Case Study on the Chongqing Connectivity Initiative (CCI)

Over the last decades, East Asia as a region has become a significant platform for political, economic, socio-cultural, and scientific advancements. These improvements have had important implication over its countries and overall, in shifting alliances and geopolitical interests around the globe. Many actors have become – and are increasingly becoming – attentive towards this region and, whilst this interest was at first merely directed at countries such as Japan and South Korea, China and Southeast Asia are now considered primary actors, mainly due to their extensive growth in different areas; the former ‘s growth based on the spectacular economic progress while the latter’s is centred around the impressive regional integration undertaken by its member countries. Nonetheless it deserves a great deal of attention how these two actors interact, particularly if one is to contemplate on partnership on national, regional, and global level. The regional level is indeed central to the analysis of China-ASEAN relations, and even the bilateral one is. This thesis analyses the degree of integration between China and ASEAN countries and specifically, Sino- Singaporean relations, considering how the bilateral and regional level can at times be cohesive rather than divisive. In this regard, the main theoretical framework of the thesis is based on the theory of regionalism and regional integration, focusing specifically on the regional experience of East Asia, a very complex and interesting case. Furthermore, it investigates how this applies to both China and Singapore in the ASEAN+3 framework. This work frames an introductory chapter which outlines the main contributions of research, mainly theoretical, as well as the technical routes and content structure. The literature review considers both multilateralism and regionalism, since the latter has ultimately originated from the former, thus focusing on the comparison between the two ones. The second chapter, however, reflects on the theoretical framework, which starts with an outlining of governance and regionalism, then focusing on regional political and economic integration and lastly, converging onto regionalism in East and Southeast Asia. All of the theoretical premises are useful in bordering China-ASEAN relations to a main end. In doing so, this chapter considers bilateral relations between China and Singapore, examines their degree of bilateral cooperation, and assesses the effects and implication this has on wider regional integration. In this regard, the China-Singapore Chongqing Connectivity Initiative (CCI) serves as a model to reveal this theory in detail and to find an answer to the research question, which is: “Is it possible for China-Singapore bilateral relations to foster regional development in East Asia? Does the CCI manage to further promote this regional engagement?”.