Surge in exports to China a double-edged sword

THE surge in exports to China from the emerging economies of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam has benefited their development, but it also makes them more vulnerable to "future Chinese economic coercion", according to a regional studies expert.

Malcolm Cook, a senior fellow at Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, said that while China is an increasingly important export market and trading partner for all 10 Asean economies, the composition of this growing China trade is distinctly different for the region's six wealthier, more globally integrated economies and the poorer, emerging economies of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Not only did the exports to China from these four mainland South-east Asian economies boom, they were the only four economies in South-east Asia that saw the growth rate of exports to China outpace the growth rate of imports from China from 2013 to 2018.