Fri, Apr 08, 2005 page9

• China aims for US to hit rock bottom in Asia

  Disputes over bits of reef sticking out of the Pacific Ocean symbolize a much more serious and durable contest for dominance in East and Southeast Asia

  • By Simon Tisdall / THE GUARDIAN
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  An uninhabited Pacific reef 1,600km due south of Tokyo makes an unlikely battlefield. But wars have been fought over less. And Okinotori Shima, as this hazard to shipping is known, is rapidly becoming a focal point of rising tension between China and Japan.

  Only two small outcrops of the reef, sovereign Japanese territory that is administratively part of Tokyo, remain above water at high tide.

  But Japan says that is enough to make it legally an island. To underpin its position, it has spent US$250 million shoring up Okinotori's twin peaks with cement.

  Japan claims an exclusive economic zone around Okinotori stretching hundreds of kilometers in every direction under the 1982 Law of the Sea. The total area is bigger than the whole of Japan.

  But China says Okinotori is just a rock. In its view, Tokyo's attempt to control a vast area of the Pacific and its potentially rich seabed and fishing resources on the basis of a couple of wet boulders has no legal bottom.

  Other disputes

  Other East Asian maritime disputes such as that over the Senkaku (Diaoyutai) archipelago, are more immediately explosive. China and Japan are at odds over seabed gas exploration rights there. Tokyo issued an ultimatum to Beijing last week, demanding it halt test drilling or face unspecified consequences.

  Yet China's Okinotori objections have a larger, strategic and military dimension. The reef lies between Taiwan and the US naval base on Guam.

  It is in these waters that Chinese submarines might one day intercept US aircraft carriers and warships attempting to deter or repulse an attack on Taiwan. Hence Beijing's dislike of reported Japanese plans to install radar on the reef.

  In this broader sense, Okinotori is but one piece in a much bigger contest being fought out across East Asia and beyond.

  One significant move in this Pacific power play was a recent US-Japan declaration of common strategic objectives that included the maintenance of peace in the Taiwan Strait. China denounced the agreement as a threat to its sovereignty.

  In the face of China's military build-up, Japan is also pursuing enhanced military collaboration with South Korea and Australia.

  But according to former Mainland Affairs Council vice chairman Lin Chong-pin (林中斌), the developing China-Japan regional standoff is merely a warm-up act. The main event is the looming struggle over China's accelerating and increasingly skillful drive to replace the US as the dominant political, economic and military power in East and Southeast Asia.

  "Chinese President Hu Jintao's (胡錦濤) long-term goal is squeezing out US influence," Lin said. "One element is China's neighbor policy -- making neighboring countries feel safe, friendly and wealthy. For this they use tools like aid, investment, trade agreements and access to China's markets.

  Nuclear deterrent

  "Another element is China's military. The strategy says the military must prepare to fight but preferably not be used. China is developing a survivable nuclear deterrent with three new ballistic missile submarines carrying a total of 144 long-range nuclear missiles. This sends an obvious message to the US," he said.

  Further afield, China's strategy included "oil diplomacy" in Africa and Latin America to boost its energy supplies; and actively enticing a trade-hungry Europe to act as a counterweight to the US -- by lifting the EU arms embargo, for example.

  China's main objectives were protection and reunification of the "motherland" and economic development, Lin said. But neutralizing US regional power was its ultimate aim.

  In this respect, Beijing believed it had time on its side, as internal People's Liberation Army documents showed.

  Francis Kan (甘逸驊) of the National Chengchi University said China's rise was forcing the US, Japan, South Korea and others into a closer strategic partnership aimed at "containing" China.

  "It's not yet an official kind of alliance like NATO, it's not mature yet. But we will see more informal cooperation like weapons harmonization and assigning tasks," Kan said.

  Scepticism

  But he expressed scepticism that if conflict came to the Taiwan Strait, the main regional flashpoint, any country other than the US would take up arms against China.

  Speaking in Tokyo last month, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appeared to gloss over the China challenge.

  "America has reason to welcome the rise of a confident, peaceful, prosperous China," Rice said. Washington wanted Beijing as a "global partner," not a strategic competitor.

  Such statements, coupled with the recent US refusal to condemn China's human-rights record before the UN commission in Geneva, have left China-watchers wondering whether Washington understands how high the stakes really are in East Asia's 21st century great game.

  Like the Japanese in Okinotori, they say, a distracted and complacent US risks being caught between a rock and a hard place.
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