Not long ago China would have reacted strongly to any perceived threat to its national interests and honor. The furore it created over the private US visit in 1995 of then president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝) is a case in point. The uproar led to the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1996, which coincided with Tai-wan's first presidential elections and forced the US to deploy two aircraft carriers to warn off Beijing from its brinkmanship.
Let us now roll the camera forward to last year. Surprisingly, China is no longer throwing tantrums or missiles over the deepening US-Taiwan defense ties. There are now high-level visits to the US by Taiwanese defense officials. The US is also going ahead with arms sales to Taipei. China's fulminations over President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) statement indicating Taiwan's sovereign status are quietly ignored in Washington. And President George W. Bush gets away with his commitment to help Taiwan defend itself with "whatever it takes." Beijing has to lump it.
Why such moderation? China's relative lack of power to confront the world's most powerful country is an obvious reason. But that was equally true before and didn't stop China from beating its drum. The difference, though, is that the Bush administration is less prone to accommodate Beijing. In the new US scheme of things China is a potential enemy and hence must be curtailed and contained.
Lately, though, there is greater cordiality in US-China relations based on some shared interests and resultant cooperation in the global war against terrorism. But quite clearly the US is setting the agenda, with focus on the anti-terror campaign. Beijing is even prepared to put up with the US' military presence in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia, right on China's periphery. On Iraq, China has been less troublesome for the US than France and Russia.
Such a tactical shift is explicable only in terms of the Bush admin-istration's determination to vigorously pursue its own goals. Therefore, if China were to attack Taiwan, for instance, it would bring the US into the fray on Tai-pei's side. At this stage, China is not comfortable about confronting the US.
The first casualty of any such confrontation would be China's economy. The country's leadership has too much invested in its economic growth. It gives them a measure of legitimacy at home and abroad. Internationally, its strong economy might make China a second superpower over a period of time. In the meantime, the aura of China's power (potential or real) is already creating waves in the region. Japan is clearly worried. ASEAN countries are more accommodating of China's regional power role.
And Beijing is trying to sound benign. It is being conciliatory on the disputed South China Sea islands issue; but without, in any way, compromising on the sovereignty issue. Chinese maps still show the islands and the surrounding territorial waters as its domain.
Beijing appears to hope that, with its growing power, its regional neighbors will simply have no choice but to accept the new reality. As Masashi Nishihara, of the National Defense Academy in Japan, points out, "As China's military power grows they may not actually threaten us directly, but they could easily intimidate us."
China is also seeking to take the ASEAN countries into its economic embrace. The forging of a free-trade area by 2010 is supposed to give the ASEAN countries privileged access into China's vast market.
But as with China's politically benign image, this too is riddled with contradictions. The reality is that China is sucking in foreign investment. Because of its cheap labor, more and more multinationals are shifting their operations to China. It is increasingly displacing its neighbors not only in low-end manufacturing exports, but also in medium- and high-technology products. It is more a competitor than an economic powerhouse.
But if China manages to create an illusion of power, it might emerge as a political and economic center just by default. The Chinese Communist Party would hope that this will enhance its legitimacy at home, at least with the middle and rich classes.
One lesson drawn by China's ruling clique from the Soviet collapse is to hold on to its political monopoly. The country's economic growth is supposed to reinforce this hold.
It is a flawed logic, though. It simply substitutes the robber-baron class of party-business conglomerate for the mass of people, who either operates on its fringes or outside it. The rural areas and interior regions, for instance, are marginalized.
But, internationally, China appears to have created an image of a dynamic economy with a market of 1.3 billion people.
And this is having its impact on Taiwan. The lure of economic opportunities in China is a magnet for Taiwanese businesses. Taipei is coming under increasing pressure to facilitate wide-ranging exchanges with China. Taiwan's business class is looking to China both for its market and competitive edge in exports from reduced production costs. This would mean economic integration with China over a period of time.
Which might not be all that bad, but for its serious political consequences. In this way, Beijing might acquire a powerful political constituency to subvert Taiwan from within. Economic integration is, therefore, as deadly for Taiwan as the missiles directed at it from across the Strait.
Sushil Seth is a freelance writer based in Sydney.
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