Taipei, Taiwan —

China this week launched a new round of diplomacy in Southeast Asia, with Chinese President Xi Jinping meeting Indonesian President-elect Prabowo Subianto on Monday and the foreign ministers of Laos, Vietnam and Timor-Leste starting to arrive in Beijing on Tuesday.

The diplomatic charm offensive comes amid territorial disputes between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea and amid efforts by the United States and its allies to strengthen maritime cooperation in the region.

In a meeting with Prabowo on Monday, Xi pledged to “deepen all-round strategic cooperation with Indonesia”, including joint efforts on maritime affairs. Prabowo expressed the hope that Beijing and Jakarta will strengthen cooperation in economy, trade, poverty alleviation and other fields.

During the three-day visit of numerous foreign ministers, Beijing hopes to “further cooperate with the three countries, guided by the important consensus between General Secretary Xi Jinping, President Xi Jinping and the leaders of the three Southeast Asian countries”. Spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China.

Next week, the United States will hold high-profile summits with Japan and the Philippines. The leaders of the three countries are expected to discuss contentious regional security issues, including a territorial dispute between Beijing and Manila.

Some analysts say a series of high-level visits to Beijing by Southeast Asian officials follow a “time-tested” pattern of Chinese diplomatic behavior.

“China has spent a long time trying to build relations with East Timor,” said Ja Ian Chong, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at the National University of Singapore. “As for Vietnam, Beijing does not want Hanoi and Manila to get closer.”

For Indonesia’s part, Zhang said China hopes to encourage Prabowo “to adopt a position that is more in line with its interests.”

“Beijing is aware that there are some tensions [in the region] So it needs to start working,” he told VOA by phone.

Although Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia have territorial disputes with China in the South China Sea, some experts say the countries remain keen to ensure those differences do not overshadow their overall relationship with Beijing.

Ngeow Chow-Bing, associate professor of Chinese studies at the University of Malaya, said that neither China nor Indonesia “want to pay too much attention to territorial disputes in the South China Sea.”

He said most Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, except the Philippines, believe they can still try to cooperate with China on other issues if they clearly express concerns about territorial disputes to Beijing and ensure their interests are not violated.

He told Voice of America: “Most ASEAN countries and China are adhering to normal relations while seeking more cooperation opportunities.”

At the same time, some ASEAN countries are building closer ties with the United States and its allies. Since last year, Vietnam’s bilateral relations with the United States, Japan, and Australia have been improved.

In response, Beijing said the bloc’s confrontation went against “the common aspirations of regional countries.”

Before visiting China, Vietnamese Foreign Minister Bui Thanh Son met with US Secretary of State Blinken in Washington. The two sides discussed issues such as peace and stability in the South China Sea.

Malaysia’s Mr Rao said many Southeast Asian countries were trying to play a balancing role between Beijing and democracies led by the United States. “These countries all want to diversify their external relations, but expanding relations is not necessarily aimed at China,” he told the U.S. Zhiyin said.

However, Singapore’s Chang said it was still questionable whether countries could “pursue opportunities from all sides”. “Our intention is to maximize benefits, but unless both parties coordinate, these bets may not be realized,” he told VOA.

For its part, Beijing will focus on rolling out more projects under its flagship infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative, that benefit relations with Southeast Asian countries and serve their interests.

“China will focus on many ‘small but beautiful projects’ in Southeast Asia’s Belt and Road Initiative, especially in digital infrastructure,” Chong told VOA.

A new survey Data released by the Yusof Issa Institute of Southeast Asian Studies shows that when asked whether a country should align with the United States or China, 50.5% of 1,994 respondents from the 10 ASEAN countries chose China, and 49.5% chose China. People chose the United States

Still, territorial disputes with the Philippines and other countries are likely to persist, with some observers saying China may try to “get some rhetorical points” on the issue during meetings with the three Southeast Asian countries’ foreign ministers.

“China did something similar in 2016, when it convened representatives from Brunei, Cambodia and Laos and issued an agreement saying that territorial disputes in the South China Sea should not affect China’s relations with ASEAN,” Hunter Ma Stone said. Part-time researcher at La Trobe University, Australia.

While it’s unclear how China will resolve the South China Sea dispute, Marston said a diplomatic charm offensive “will certainly help.”