On people-to-people connectivity between China and mainland Southeast Asian countries: supportive factors in history and developments in the context of “Belt and Road"

People-to-people connectivity is a kind of profound and long-standing connectivity. This article aims at exploring the supportive factors of the people-to-people connectivity between China and the Mainland Southeast Asian countries (i.e., Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, Lao, Cambodia and Myanmar), such as trans-boundary channels, overseas Chinese, cross-border ethnicity and Buddhism culture. In the following pages, this article analyzes the dynamics of the above-mentioned elements, and suggests that trans-boundary channels, overseas Chinese and Chinese, and cross-border ethnicity would be applicable to analyze the people-to-people connectivity between China and other countries (or regions) along the Belt and Road. Finally, this article discusses the new trends of people-to-people connectivity between China and the Mainland Southeast Asian countries in the context of Belt and Road, that is, the cases of China Cultural Center and overseas exchange of Chinese books