The majority of the 50 million overseas Chinese scattered across the world live in Southeast Asia. The role that China and the ethnic Chinese have played in the political, economic and social development in the region has been driving some of the most important changes in the domestic politics and foreign policies of Southeast Asian countries. The authors of the volume Chinese encounters in Southeast Asia: How people, money and ideas from China are changing a region, make a most admirable contribution to the field through examining the impact of China, and Chinese migrants and entrepreneurs at the grassroots level. The bottom-up approach used, based primarily on empirical studies, offers the most up-to-date perspective on how to calibrate the social and societal impact of China and the Chinese on the region. The volume deserves the attention of all observers of Southeast Asia who follow the current fundamental but quiet shifts the region is undergoing as the result of the unprecedented global Chinese penetration and presence in the era of the Belt and Road Initiative.

The volume gauges the Chinese impact on the identities, livelihoods, norms and aspirations of Southeast Asians. This unique angle distinguishes itself from most of the existing literature on China–Southeast Asia relations, which focus on a government-to-government perspective and draws conclusions primarily about interregional and bilateral relations. The rich and convincing evidence presented here on an array of diverse and intriguing issues, ranging from the Chinese influence over domestic political alliances in the Philippines to changing patterns of transborder trade in northern Thailand, from the impact of Chinese enclaves on state formation in Laos to evolving water governance in the Mekong Basin, all brings to the reader a vivid and precise picture of the real-life influence the Chinese have exerted on traditional norms and practices in the region.

One challenge in China–Southeast Asia Studies has always been the accurate measurement of the impact and the testing of the correlations between and among the variables. Due to the profoundly different local contexts and historical experiences between mainland and maritime Southeast Asia, and among the individual countries themselves, quantitative studies of relations between China and Southeast Asia have been rather difficult beyond regional public opinion surveys. However, the in-depth case studies in this book successfully bridge the gap between overarching conclusions and qualitative evidence.

Instead of a binary view of China as being overwhelming and unmalleable, the chapters present a more nuanced picture of how Southeast Asian polities and societies also subtly but firmly react to the Chinese influence through absorption, negotiations, adaptations, manipulations and counterreactions. Such details change the dominant but simplistic view that China's influence is one-sided and irresistible, and that Southeast Asian countries have no choice but to be passive recipients of this influence. The mechanisms and dynamics of these interactions, or in other words, how Southeast Asian governments and societies enmesh and shape Chinese behaviours in their respective countries, through the exercise of hard and soft power, deserves more academic investigation and discussion.

This volume, edited by Pál Nyíri and Danielle Tan, points out an important area that scholars of China–Southeast Asia relations should prioritise in this era of changing great power politics. As the volume reflects, the Chinese impact on Southeast Asia is not as linear or one-dimensional as politicians portray, and countries in the region have ample, indirect channels to push China back. The policy implications are tremendous. It points to the need for a much more nuanced understanding of the causalities on the ground in order to address the challenge of a rising China in the region.