China’s use of economic statecraft to achieve its foreign policy goals has the potential to effect profound economic,political and strategic changes in the South East Asian region.China is able to achieve this primarily through the use of ‘carrots’,or positive uses of economic policy tools to exercise influence.While China’s use of economic statecraft is attracting increasing attention in the literature,the body of research on its application and effectiveness in South East Asia is still in its infancy.Few studies have undertaken a comprehensive analysis of China’s use of this type of statecraft in the region.Given the strategic and economic importance of the region and China’s emergence as global power,further contributions to this field of study are required.This thesis seeks to contribute to this gap in the literature by providing an evaluation of China’s economic statecraft in the South East Asian region.Using David Baldwin’s theory of economic statecraft and a case study analysis of Cambodia and Malaysia,the effectiveness and outcomes of China’s economic statecraft is evaluated.This study makes four key findings.First,China’s economic statecraft in the case studies relies almost exclusively on the use of positive economic policy instruments to achieve foreign policy goals.Second,the case of Cambodia shows that positive economic statecraft can be used to counter negative economic statecraft.Third,the case of Malaysia shows that China’s economic statecraft is limited by its inability to influence bottom-up enablers of its goals in democratic states.Fourth,the failure of influence attempts using positive economic policy instruments in Malaysia did not damage China’s image in the target country.Overall,the thesis finds that the outcomes of China’s economic statecraft in the case studies are positive.