as the separatist movements in Taiwan, Tibet and Xinjiang as the greatest potential source of instability (Wang p. 83). China considers these internal security concerns and therefore should be solved internally without any third-parties. In addition, China believes that each Asian state has their own distinct view of national security and the best way to achieve it (Roy p. 179). Multilateralism would only serve to complicate matters and invite foreign influence into an internal security problem.Another reason China is still hesitant of multilateralism is because their realist perception dictates that a power struggle will almost always take place within any multilateral organization. Since China does not feel that it is yet strong enough to compete for power, it is hesitant to involve itself in "such a struggle too early, as it could find itself in an unfavorable position" (Wang p. 84). In addition, Chinese analysts may still believe that mutlilateral security organizations often require an enemy and Beijing fears that they may be cast into the enemy's role. Therefore, the Chinese obviously do not want to commit themselves to something that may limit their freedom of action in the future (Wang p. 84).Finally and perhaps most importantly China favors dealing with its neighbors bilaterally is because this lacks the complications that might arise from a multilateral security framework and maximizes its leverage over its smaller neighbors. A perfect example of this would be the Spratly Islands dispute. Currently there are six claimants to the Spratly Islands- China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines (Roy p. 185-186). China has insisted that each claimant deal bilaterally with China on this issue (Roy p. 190). Obviously, this is done to maximize China's greater power, as each individual claimant is much smaller than China. China regards any efforts to resolve this issue in a multilateral forum an unnecessary c...
