Rise of China: Threat or Benefit to ASEAN-5

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the economic impact of Chinas rise to ASEAN-5 focusing on the export market share to the United States. China has been rapidly growing and it is still unclear that if it will hurt the Southeast Asia countries export market shares. This paper uses Competitive Threat Analysis to determine if it brings threats or benefits to the ASEAN-5 countries. Chinas competitive threat is examined by SiTC industry from 1996 to 2015. By analyzing the market share changes and identify the industry that is directly or indirectly exposed to Chinas competitive threat. From this analysis, I realize that ASEAN-5 and Chinas export structure to the United States is very similar and put the ASEAN-5 into a very vulnerable position, especially Malaysia. Singapore on the other side, has successfully move most of the market share that were exposed in direct competitive threat from China to partial threat. Overall, this paper suggests that rise of China has bring competitive threat to ASEAN-5.