China’s new charm offensive in Asia – using infrastructure development to garner soft power at the expense of rivals US and Japan – has reached new heights in recent weeks. Multi-billion US dollar deals with strategic partners such as Sri Lanka and Pakistan aside, even countries with reservations about China’s rise have begun taking a more pragmatic view toward using China’s huge foreign exchange reserves to their benefit.

Earlier this month, Indonesian leaders travelled to Beijing seeking to tap financing for power and transport projects, notwithstanding the new administration’s strong emphasis on both national and maritime security. Chinese companies are challenging Japanese bids for high speed rail contracts in Malaysia and Thailand. This week, a team from Indian Railways flew to Beijing to discuss a potential Delhi-Chennai high speed rail link.

Yet in spite of the huge stashes of money available in Beijing, Chinese financing for existing energy projects in Vietnam – an economy with high dependency on China – has been all but frozen as a result of bilateral tensions over the South China Sea, according to research by Asean Confidential, a research service at the Financial Times.