The role of ASEAN in China's Belt and Road Initiative

The study focuses on why China's Belt and Road policy places so much emphasis on ASEAN and what role ASEAN plays in the Belt and Road. Ten years have passed since President Xi Jinping announced the Silk Road Economic Belt and Maritime Silk Road in 2013. The 'One Belt, One Road' route begins on China's east coast and winds its way into Europe via the Indian and South China Seas. There is an additional route that travels from the Chinese coast to eastern Indonesia across the South China Sea. Southeast Asia is on the route that links China with Africa and Europe, and the ASEAN nations are inextricably linked to the Maritime Silk Road's route points. Meanwhile, the Belt and Road Initiative also aims to safeguard China's energy needs for the oil- and gas-rich countries of Central and Southeast Asia, where China will build efficient energy corridors from Central and Southeast Asian resources to China's manufacturing bases. The crude oil pipeline between China and Myanmar began to operate in 2017. With the pipeline, China may buy crude oil without having to cross the Strait of Malacca and enter the South China Sea, from West Asia and Africa. Southeast Asian countries play the role of middlemen. Meanwhile, thanks to similar geographic locations, China and Southeast Asia established trade relations thousands of years ago by land or sea. It has had a great impact. And since some 35 million Chinese currently live in Southeast Asia, they are often cited as guarantors of China's credibility. All these have laid a solid foundation for the good implementation of the Belt and Road Initiative in ASEAN countries. At the same time, the study of this initiative is of geopolitical importance due to the rise of China.