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| China-Japan-Koreas |
| The China question |
| 2005-12-12 |
| The UKâs premier security think tank warned that, while the world focuses on the fight against international terrorism and the Middle East, China is rapidly expanding its influence from Asia to Africa. The âpearlsâ in Africa include Sudan, Angola, Algeria, Gabon, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Djibouti, Mali, Central Africa, Liberia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of Congo President George W Bushâs recent visit to Asia made little news â by design. But thatâs because Mr Bush didnât begin to address the issue that is looming ever larger in the region: the changing face of security in Asia in view of Chinaâs growing economic and military might. This summer, for example, China and Russia conducted their first-ever grand-scale joint military exercises. This was followed by Russian news reports that China, Russia, and India would conduct trilateral military exercises, named âIndira 2005â on the same scale before the end of this year. In the past, such a combination of countries was almost unthinkable, and these exercises cannot be explained away as simple âone-offâ affairs with little resonance. Instead, they reflect Chinaâs long-term strategic goal of establishing hegemony across Asia. One tool of this ambition is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), under which the Sino-Russian exercises took place. Established in June 2001, the SCO includes China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The SCOâs original purpose was to mitigate tensions on the borders of China and the Central Asian countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the arrival of the United States military with the war in Afghanistan. China regards the SCO as a stage for broadening its influence over a vast region, ranging from the Asia-Pacific to Southwest Asia, the Middle East, East Africa, and the Indian Ocean. Indeed, its members include about 45 percent of the worldâs population, and 28 percent of the landmass ranging across the Eurasian continent. Chinaâs active leadership of the SCO has resulted in policies that it favours. Gradually, the SCO shifted its focus to fighting Islamic radicals. Nowadays, however, the SCO is often used as a forum to campaign against supposed American unilateralism and to provide a united front â especially between China and Russia â against the US with respect to security and arms-reduction issues in the region. This includes joint anti-terror training and demands to reduce US forces in the region, particularly from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The SCO provides China not only with a platform to confront the existing US-led alliance in the Asia-Pacific region, but is increasingly being used to prevent the formation of a US-led network to restrain Chinaâs advance. Ultimately, it is feared that the SCO could develop into a military alliance similar to the Warsaw Pact of the Cold War era, with an embryonic âGreat China Unionâ at its core. But Chinaâs regional diplomacy goes far beyond the SCO. It seizes every opportunity that comes its way, including the Six Party Talks on North Koreaâs nuclear ambitions, to emphasise its centrality to the settlement of any and all Asian issues. Moreover, it continues to build its âstring of pearlsâ of military bases at every key point on maritime transportation routes along the âarc of instabilityâ from the Middle East to Chinaâs coast. The âpearlsâ in Africa include Sudan, Angola, Algeria, Gabon, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Djibouti, Mali, Central Africa, Liberia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In each country, China is nurturing special military and commercial relations intended to promote loyalty to Chinese interests. Similarly, many African states now seem to be leaning heavily towards China in its dispute with Taiwan. When Japanâs government tried to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council, few African countries backed its bid, despite receiving economic aid for decades. China likes to boast of its âpeaceful riseâ. But the rise of Bismarckâs Germany at the end of the nineteenth century was also peaceful â for a while. The question is not whether China rises to great-power status peacefully, but whether it intends to remain peaceful when it gets there. Just as the world confronted the âGerman Questionâ 125 years ago, it is now confronting the âChina Questionâ. We need a better answer this time. Hideaki Kaneda, retired vice admiral of Japanâs Self-Defence Forces, is currently director of the Okazaki Institute |
| Posted by:john |
| #3 China is rapidly expanding its influence from Asia to Africa. The âpearlsâ in Africa include Sudan, Angola, Algeria, Gabon, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Djibouti, Mali, Central Africa, Liberia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of Congo I suspect this comes as a complete surprise to the US State Department. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2005-12-12 21:29 |
| #2 Here's an interesting solution. America should tell China that if it initiates hostilities with any other nation, including Taiwan, we will instantly cancel all debt held by the communists in the form of US treasury bonds. Make any military action upon their part prohibitively expensive. I doubt such a move would permanently taint the appeal of American treasury notes as a stable investment for other foreign powers. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2005-12-12 17:41 |
| #1 There are two ways of looking at this. The first is out of concern that China is doing something dangerous. The other is to objectively ask what the Chinese should do, no matter who was in charge. That is, China is clearly desirous of leaving its isolationist box and joining the rest of the world. Many of its historical problems originate from this isolationism, which is just plain unacceptable in the modern world. So how does China come out? Trade opened the door. Vast amounts of goods flow in and out of China today. To support this, the Chinese had to build a massive merchant marine. To support this merchant marine, the Chinese had to build a deep water navy and invest in far-flung transportation corridors and installations. At this point, their actions become indistinguishable from a military build-up. Their emergence cannot be sanely looked at as anything else by the other world powers, and for the sole reason that pressure must be met with pressure they must match this build-up, creating a greater possibility for conflict. This means that the rest of the world has a very hard time distinguishing between what would be good for China and the world as a whole, and what is a threat for the future. China wants to internationalize, but to keep its domestic standards, many of which are intolerable to international standards. So begins a delicate balancing act of incremental domestic change in China. It is a frightening prospect for the Chinese leaders, and a miscalculation could prove deadly. Liberalization does not happen overnight, but it must happen. China cannot enter the world yet remain what it had been without destructive results. But if they liberalize too fast, they deeply fear chaos. Can China even exist, or be managed, with less than authoritarian means? A good question. Can it continue on its present internal course without collapse? Also a good question. Lastly, will it seek some solution to its internal problem by becoming militarily aggressive? That is the biggest question of them all. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2005-12-12 16:32 |