A hosepipe fight between US and Chinese sailors in the South China Sea has put a temporary dampener on the feel-good glow created by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent Beijing visit. China’s foreign ministry angrily accused the Pentagon on Tuesday of breaking maritime law, distorting the truth and engaging in “totally unacceptable” behavior.
Chinese military officials went further, hinting that the Impeccable, an unarmed US ocean surveillance vessel intercepted last Sunday off Hainan island by five Chinese ships, was on a spying mission. If so, this would be unsurprising. Among other facilities, Hainan houses a base for China’s ballistic missile submarine fleet. It is an obvious target for US military intelligence gatherers.
In April 2001, a US spy plane was forced down over the island after a mid-air collision with a Chinese fighter. It was then-US president George W. Bush’s first international crisis and he was obliged to write and say sorry. In 2002, another supposedly innocent US survey ship, the Bowditch, got into a similar scrape in the Yellow Sea.
Beijing has repeatedly protested against US naval incursions into its “exclusive economic zones” — 320km nautical no-go areas such as that around Hainan.
Washington has not ratified the UN’s 1982 law of the sea treaty that created the zones and maintains its ships operate in international waters.
Although world oil prices rose briefly in reaction, the Impeccable incident was hardly on a par with the confrontation between waterborne Western imperialists and fanatical Yangtze River nationalists depicted in The Sand Pebbles, the 1966 movie drama starring Steve McQueen.
Regional analysts have played down its importance, arguing both countries have bigger fish to fry.
Clinton certainly devoted considerable energy in Beijing to stressing the need for joint efforts to fight global recession, climate change and nuclear proliferation.
With an uncanny choice of metaphor given recent events, the secretary of state declared: “We are truly going to rise or fall together. We are in the same boat and thankfully, we are rowing in the same direction.”
All the same, this latest spat could serve as a timely reminder of the many fault lines that run through China-US relations, which even a post-Bush policy of closer bilateral engagement and cooperation cannot wholly hide.
If the administration of US President Barack Obama was in danger of glossing over these points of friction, the Impeccable provided a reality check.
Accelerating military competition in the Asia-Pacific region is one major area of concern. China’s latest 14.9 percent annual increase in military spending, its recently confirmed plans to build aircraft carriers and its evident intention to project “blue water” naval power eastward into the Pacific foretell a significant challenge to US dominance by mid-century or earlier.
The two sides recently agreed to resume regular military contacts, broken off last year after Bush agreed to sell US$6.5 billion in arms to Taiwan.
But the agreement did not prevent the Impeccable incident. Speaking recently, Admiral Timothy Keating, head of the US Pacific Command, complained of a continuing lack of transparency and candor on the Chinese side.
“It’s our desire to have more exchanges with the Chinese. We want to do more with them,” Keating said.
But Beijing had shown no interest, for example, in a US offer to host military-to-military talks with Taiwan. Despite Clinton’s assertion that a strong China could help boost global security, concerns persisted about its military expansion and its development of “area-denial” weapons and anti-satellite and cyber-warfare capabilities, Keating said.
This week’s Chinese crackdown in Tibet, Beijing’s snarling rejection of state department criticism of its human rights record and its ongoing obduracy on trade and currency issues present additional tripwires for advocates of unconditional engagement.
China’s blocking last week of a US move in the UN security council to condemn Sudan’s expulsion of aid workers from Darfur showed how, on some key issues, China, far from rowing together with the US in the same boat, is not even on board. Next month’s G20 summit in London, when Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) will discuss coordinated action to beat the recession, will be the biggest test yet of a relationship holed below the waterline. It could be sink or swim.
China badly misread Japan. It sought to intimidate Tokyo into silence on Taiwan. Instead, it has achieved the opposite by hardening Japanese resolve. By trying to bludgeon a major power like Japan into accepting its “red lines” — above all on Taiwan — China laid bare the raw coercive logic of compellence now driving its foreign policy toward Asian states. From the Taiwan Strait and the East and South China Seas to the Himalayan frontier, Beijing has increasingly relied on economic warfare, diplomatic intimidation and military pressure to bend neighbors to its will. Confident in its growing power, China appeared to believe
After more than three weeks since the Honduran elections took place, its National Electoral Council finally certified the new president of Honduras. During the campaign, the two leading contenders, Nasry Asfura and Salvador Nasralla, who according to the council were separated by 27,026 votes in the final tally, promised to restore diplomatic ties with Taiwan if elected. Nasralla refused to accept the result and said that he would challenge all the irregularities in court. However, with formal recognition from the US and rapid acknowledgment from key regional governments, including Argentina and Panama, a reversal of the results appears institutionally and politically
In 2009, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) made a welcome move to offer in-house contracts to all outsourced employees. It was a step forward for labor relations and the enterprise facing long-standing issues around outsourcing. TSMC founder Morris Chang (張忠謀) once said: “Anything that goes against basic values and principles must be reformed regardless of the cost — on this, there can be no compromise.” The quote is a testament to a core belief of the company’s culture: Injustices must be faced head-on and set right. If TSMC can be clear on its convictions, then should the Ministry of Education
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) provided several reasons for military drills it conducted in five zones around Taiwan on Monday and yesterday. The first was as a warning to “Taiwanese independence forces” to cease and desist. This is a consistent line from the Chinese authorities. The second was that the drills were aimed at “deterrence” of outside military intervention. Monday’s announcement of the drills was the first time that Beijing has publicly used the second reason for conducting such drills. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership is clearly rattled by “external forces” apparently consolidating around an intention to intervene. The targets of
RSS