Warnings of ASEAN split

Updated December 7, 2010 11:19:11

Southeast Asia's regional grouping ASEAN is busy pushing ahead with a grand plan to integrate the region with transport and communications links by 2015.

A new analysis has warned howerver, that Southeast Asia's mainland states are drifing away from ASEAN, splitting the member states into two groups. And it says the cause is China. The claims are made in a paper by Dr Geoff Wade, an historian of Sino-Southeast Asian interactions. The paper looks at how China's tying the fortunes of the Mekong River states to itself by using its enormous economic clout through an alternative grouping known as the Greater Mekong Sub-region, bringing together China's southern provinces of Yunnan and Guangxi, with Burma and Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. So are there benefits for the recipient states?

Presenter: Linda Mottram
Speakers: Southeast Asia historian Doctor Geoff Wade, Australian National University