Introduction: Institutional Resilience and Sub regional Governance across the China CLMVT Nexus

Abstract

This special issue examines sub-regional governance within the China CLMVT nexus, conceptualizing “institutional resilience” as a dynamic process of calibration, legal adaptation, and strategic management under asymmetric power structures. Rather than passive recipients of great power influence, the CLMVT countries (Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Thailand) actively exercise agency to balance economic dependence with political autonomy. Across six contributions, the papers explore how these mainland Southeast Asian states navigate competing external actors — primarily China and Japan — through mechanisms like Myanmar’s frontier state-building, Vietnam’s adaptive hedging with the Belt and Road Initiative, China-Thailand legal interoperability, Sino-Japanese aid coexistence, and ASEAN’s normative role. Ultimately, the collection demonstrates how framework hedging, regulatory transparency and aid dualism shape contemporary Asian governance, offering critical insights into sovereignty, survival, and regional order in a fragmented Indo-Pacific.