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US attitude to Beijing seems to be changing

Lost in the debates about whether the EU should lift its arms export embargo on China is a much broader and more pressing question: Does the White House once again see China as a strategic competitor, as it did in the early days of George W. Bush's presidency, before the war on terror forced Bush to seek cooperation with China's rulers? That Japan has joined the US in standing alongside Taiwan in opposing an end to the EU arms embargo on China suggests that this is so.

Never before has Japan's government joined a US administration so closely on the Taiwan issue. When the two countries upgraded their alliance relationship in 1996, Japan's sphere of military operations was expanded far from its main island. But the government remained deliberately vague about its responsibilities.

Nearly 10 years later, Japan is ready for strategic clarity. Shinzo Abe, the acting secretary-general of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party and a leading candidate to succeed Junichiro Koizumi as Japanese prime minister next year, put it bluntly: It would be wrong for Japan to send a signal to China that the US and Japan will tolerate a Chinese military invasion of Taiwan.

China regards Japan's seizure of Taiwan in 1895 and the ensuing 50-year occupation as one of the most humiliating events in its modern history. But in recent years, pro-Taiwan groups and politicians in Japan have been gaining momentum. For example, despite China's protests, Japan hosted a birthday reception for the emperor in Taipei in 2003. Last year, Japan issued a visa to Taiwan's former president Lee Teng-hui (李登輝), a man who explicitly advocates a US-Japan-Taiwan alliance against China.

Japan's growing coziness with Taiwan has been accompanied by worsening political relations with China. Although China surpassed the US to become Japan's largest trading partner last year, the top leaders of the two countries have not visited each other's capitals since 2001. Koizumi has insisted on paying an annual visit to the Yasukuni shrine, behavior that China's government considers unacceptable.

Tensions are also running high in the East China Sea, where the two countries dispute sovereignty over a number of islands. China is exploring gas fields close to the border as defined by Japan. A brief incursion by a Chinese submarine into Japanese territorial waters a few months ago caused further alarm in Tokyo.

In response, a new Japanese defense review identified China as a threat. Japan's Self Defense Forces outlined three scenarios of a potential Chinese invasion and are making preparations accordingly, while the Japanese government announced last month that it had formally taken control of an island chain over which China, Taiwan and Japan all claim sovereignty. Moreover, the US military is closely coordinating with Japan, and strengthening its command and combat capabilities near Taiwan. So, barely two months into Bush's second term, alarm bells about the China threat seem to be ringing again. Key US foreign policymakers now openly contradict conclusions reached last year by the Independent Task Force on Chinese Military Power headed by former defense secretary Harold Brown and retired admiral Joseph Prueher.

That panel found that the balance of power between the US and China is likely to remain decisively in the US' favor beyond the next 20 years. More significantly, with the latest statement about Taiwan, the US and Japan are poised to use their joint military forces to deter, deny, and ultimately defeat potential Chinese military action across the Taiwan Strait. Europe needs to decide if it is ready to sign on with the US, as Japan has now clearly done, to contain China's strategic and military ambitions.

Jiang Wenran, twice a Japan Foundation fellow, is professor of political science at the University of Alberta, Canada.

Copyright: Project Syndicate
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