For over a decade, US strategic thinking has focused on China's emergence as a great power in East Asia. Such thinking is passe. China is already East Asia's great power.
While the US has struggled in Iraq this year, China has spent the year on a diplomatic goodwill offensive in Asia. The result?
In October, one day after US President George W. Bush was booed in Australia's parliament, Chinese President Hu Jintao (
To be sure, the US remains Asia's powerbroker, as it has been since the end of World War II. But diplomacy regarding the Korean peninsula, in which all roads lead to Beijing, has opened the door to China as the new "go-to guy." Indeed, the six-party meetings in Beijing earlier this year to discuss North Korea's nuclear challenge confirmed China's emerging great power status, which is also reflected in its increasingly active -- and effective -- Asian diplomacy.
This includes even Japan, China's traditional rival. Last May, Hu met with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi in St. Petersburg, Russia. Hu's move lifted bilateral relations out of the deep freeze, where China's previous leadership had consigned them following Koizumi's repeated visits to the Yasukuni Shrine, where the spirits of Japan's war dead, including Class A war criminals, are enshrined.
Unlike former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (
In August, Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda attended ceremonies in Beijing marking the 25th anniversary of the China-Japan Friendship Treaty. At the same time, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing (李肇星) traveled to Tokyo. In September, Japanese defense minister visited China, resuming high-level defense contacts.
If all goes well, a Koizumi visit to China may be in the offing. Koizumi has long sought an official visit, only to be stymied by Chinese opposition to his Yasukuni visits.
His interest is understandable. Last year, Japanese imports from China surpassed those from the US for the first time, while annual exports to China soared by 39.3 percent. Even as the SARS epidemic raged in China, Japanese companies kept their long-term investment bets on the promise of low-cost Chinese labor.
China has been equally active to its south and west. In June, during the ASEAN summit in Phnom Penh, China announced that it will sign the 1976 Treaty of Amity and Cooperation, ASEAN's founding document.
China's accession to ASEAN represents a major confidence-building step toward Southeast Asia. It follows China's 2001 proposal for a China-ASEAN free trade zone and its active financial support for Thailand and Indonesia during the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis. Talk of a "strategic partnership" is in the air.
Meanwhile in South Asia, after hosting Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Beijing, China and India signed a Declaration on Principles for Relations and Comprehensive Cooperation. India acknowledges in the document that Tibet is part of China and proscribes anti-Chinese activities by Tibetans on Indian soil. Last month, the first-ever joint India-China naval exercises were held off the Chinese coast.
If the US is looking to develop a post-Cold War strategic relationship with India to counter Chinese influence in South and Southeast Asia, the recent China-India agreements suggests that an alternative strategic calculus may exist in both China and India. The US must recognize that, while the countries of the region look to the US to balance -- or at least leaven -- China's growing influence, they are unlikely to be interested in getting caught up in any containment strategy.
For now, US and Chinese interests coincide on the war on terrorism, on a peaceful resolution of the nuclear question on the Korean peninsula, and on stability in East Asia.
Over the long term, however, accommodation will be difficult on issues like Taiwan, Korean reunification and the future of the US alliance's structure in Asia. Moreover, on the fundamental issue of freedom -- "the non-negotiable demand of human dignity," in the words of the Bush administration's national security strategy -- US and Chinese visions conflict.
Clearly, the war on terrorism presented China with opportunities to strengthen both its relations with the US and its ties with nations across the Pacific. The big question is whether today's cooperation between China and the US will prove to be no more than a diversion from Asia's enduring strategic reality -- China's emergence as the region's dominant power.
The safest bet is that Asia's realities will outlast the war on terrorism, and that after Afghanistan and Iraq, when the US refocuses on Asia, it will find a very different China in a much-changed region.
James Przystup is senior research fellow in the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the US National Defense University. He served on the Policy Planning Staff in the State Department and the Policy Planning Staff of the Secretary of Defense during the first Bush administration. The views expressed are his own.
Copyright: Project Syndicate
There is much evidence that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is sending soldiers from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — and is learning lessons for a future war against Taiwan. Until now, the CCP has claimed that they have not sent PLA personnel to support Russian aggression. On 18 April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinskiy announced that the CCP is supplying war supplies such as gunpowder, artillery, and weapons subcomponents to Russia. When Zelinskiy announced on 9 April that the Ukrainian Army had captured two Chinese nationals fighting with Russians on the front line with details
On a quiet lane in Taipei’s central Daan District (大安), an otherwise unremarkable high-rise is marked by a police guard and a tawdry A4 printout from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicating an “embassy area.” Keen observers would see the emblem of the Holy See, one of Taiwan’s 12 so-called “diplomatic allies.” Unlike Taipei’s other embassies and quasi-consulates, no national flag flies there, nor is there a plaque indicating what country’s embassy this is. Visitors hoping to sign a condolence book for the late Pope Francis would instead have to visit the Italian Trade Office, adjacent to Taipei 101. The death of
By now, most of Taiwan has heard Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) threats to initiate a vote of no confidence against the Cabinet. His rationale is that the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)-led government’s investigation into alleged signature forgery in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) recall campaign constitutes “political persecution.” I sincerely hope he goes through with it. The opposition currently holds a majority in the Legislative Yuan, so the initiation of a no-confidence motion and its passage should be entirely within reach. If Chiang truly believes that the government is overreaching, abusing its power and targeting political opponents — then
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), joined by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), held a protest on Saturday on Ketagalan Boulevard in Taipei. They were essentially standing for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which is anxious about the mass recall campaign against KMT legislators. President William Lai (賴清德) said that if the opposition parties truly wanted to fight dictatorship, they should do so in Tiananmen Square — and at the very least, refrain from groveling to Chinese officials during their visits to China, alluding to meetings between KMT members and Chinese authorities. Now that China has been defined as a foreign hostile force,
RSS