China makes ground as Obama stays at home
The past week has been a big one for Asia, with the US and China vying for influence. On the face of it, China has gained some local kudos from the fact that President Obama had to miss two regional summits and cancel visits to four Asian countries, due to the US government shutdown. This has led to some talk on the diplomatic circuit to the effect that China has “outflanked” the US. As one well-placed observer put it, Obama’s absence was “symptomatic of the concern in Asia over the sustainability of the American commitment. But not everything has gone China’s way this week.
Noting Obama’s enforced absence from the Asian-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit in Bali and the East Asia Summit in Brunei, Carl Thayer, a professor at the Australian Defence Force Academy, observed: “For countries not closely allied with the US, Obama’s no-show will reinforce their policy of bandwagoning with China”, while Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore said: “Obviously we prefer a US government which is working to one which is not; and we prefer a US president who is able to travel to fulfil his international duties to one who is preoccupied with his domestic preoccupations.”
China will also have been gratified, no doubt, by the enforced cancellation of a US-Japan military exercise due to take place in north-eastern Japan from 15-28 October and to involve 400 US and 600 Japanese military personnel. A Japanese defence ministry spokesman warned: “If cancellations continue on other events, the impact would be substantial.”
China’s President Xi Jinping made the most of the opportunities afforded by Obama’s absence. Amongst other things, he announced deals worth $30bn in Indonesia and declared a “comprehensive strategic partnership” between China and Malaysia, including upgraded military ties.
China’s Premier Li Keqiang, in an interview with media from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), talked about building on the “golden decade” since the founding of the China-Asean strategic partnership to “jointly build a closer China-Asean community of common destiny”. He noted that two-way trade, at $400bn, was five times its level of 10 years ago and that the aim was for bilateral trade to reach the $1trn level by 2020. Naturally he added all the usual noises about China’s “peaceful rise”.
The US position on the setbacks of the past week, as put by Secretary of State John Kerry, is that it has been brought about simply by “a moment in politics” that, although “unfortunate”, has no long term significance.
The pessimists (or optimists, in the case of China) are not so sure; and it is indeed unfortunate that this setback in Asia has come so quickly after the US’s hasty acceptance of a Russian fig leaf in order to avoid a punitive action against Syria for its use of chemical weapons, which in turn follows on from muddled policies in Egypt (and elsewhere in the Middle East) which included abandoning long-time ally Hosni Mubarak and then turning against his democratically elected successor regime under the Muslim Brotherhood.
The credibility of the US’s pivot to Asia, like the credibility of its Middle East policies, is being openly questioned. Even the economic element of the US’s Asia pivot is looking unconvincing.
Three-year-old negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPT) seem to be heading nowhere very fast, and the prospect that any final agreement will have to gain Congressional approval only adds to the pessimism. As one well-placed US observer put it this week: “On the commercial side [of the pivot] there seems to be more rhetoric than action.”
But China has not had things all its own way during the past week. Following Japan-US ministerial talks on 3 October, for instance, the following points were agreed, few of which will be viewed positively by Beijing:
- The 1997 guidelines on bilateral defence cooperation to be revised, with drafting of the revised guidelines to be completed by the end of 2014.
- Expanded cooperation in the spheres of ballistic-missile defence, cyberspace, and outer space.
- Continuing encouragement to China to “adhere to international norms of behaviour”.
- A renewed commitment to relocating the US Marine base within Okinawa.
- A reaffirmation of plans to begin moving Marine personnel from Okinawa to Guam in the first half of the 2020s.
The US also “welcomed” Japan’s efforts to re-examine the legal bases for exercising collective self-defence.
This was followed up on 4 October with a trilateral strategic dialogue between the US, Japan, and Australia on the sidelines of the Apec meeting in Bali after which the three powers issued a joint statement opposing “coercive or unilateral actions” aimed at changing the status quo in the East China Sea, where China and Japan are locked in a territorial dispute over the Japanese-administered Senkaku (Diaoyu) Islands.
It was also interesting to see Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe making a lot during the past week about Japan’s economic rejuvenation. He was clearly not prepared to allow China to make all the running on this front.
Speaking at an Apec business event in Indonesia on 7 October, Abe was keen to emphasize that he would make a difference. He said: “I can no longer lose time for necessary reforms”, and he argued that his recent move to increase sales tax for the first time in 20 years would not harm Japan’s recovery. He said: “Economic revival and fiscal restoration can go together, and there is no other way.”
As far as Japan’s role in the regional economy is concerned, Abe emphasized in particular Japan’s willingness, and ability, to take the lead in developing advanced infrastructure for transport and energy systems. He said Japan would provide the knowhow to developing countries in Apec, adding: “Japan has experienced achieving rapid economic growth by overcoming energy shortages and environmental destruction among other difficulties.”
One particular concern for China will have been remarks on Taiwan made last week by US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Strategy, Daniel Chiu. He reportedly told a US-Taiwan Defence Industry Conference that the “core objective” of the US relationship with Taiwan is to ensure that Taiwan is “strong and confident and free from coercion and threat”.
The conference was not open to the press, and Chiu’s key note speech was not released by the Pentagon, but his remarks were reported by the Taiwan Times, which said they had been provided to the newspaper by “several different sources”.
Chiu was also reported to have said that the US’s obligation to Taiwan did not extend just to arms sales and that bilateral defence cooperation was broader than that. Chiu was quoted as saying that the preservation of peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait is “fundamental to broader US strategic interests”, most notably “the promotion of peace and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific region”.
Security, according to the remarks attributed to Chiu, is “a necessary precondition” to peace and prosperity and it is crucial that Taiwan’s defence force has the capability to defend the nation. The Taiwan Times quoted Chiu as saying that it is important for Taiwan to have sufficient military personnel, equipment, and training to “make an aggressor pause before using threat or force for the purpose of coercion or aggression”.
Not surprisingly, China has reacted badly to all this. On the trilateral strategic talks, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said on 7 October: “The United States, Japan, and Australia are allies but this should not become an excuse to interfere in territorial disputes, otherwise it will only make the problems more complicated and harm the interests of all parties.”
A day earlier, on 6 October, President Xi Jinping had his say on Taiwan, warning an envoy from Taiwan attending the Apec meeting that “the issue of political disagreements that exist between the two sides must reach a final resolution, step by step, and these issues cannot be passed on from generation to generation.”
Such statements from Beijing, as well as its increasingly assertive actions in the East and South China Seas (constantly monitored and reported by this service), reinforce the determination of countries such as Japan, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Australia to move closer to the United States and (certainly in the case of Japan) to increase their own unilateral defence capacities.
Vietnam is another of China’s neighbours that remains sceptical about Beijing’s intentions and future actions, and on 7 October it agreed to cooperate more with Japan over maritime security. Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe met with Vietnam’s President Truong Tan Sang at the Apec meeting in Bali where, according to Japanese sources, San was said to “agree with Abe” when the Japanese prime minister voiced concerns about unilateral attempts “to change the status quo by force”.
But if Japan, the Philippines, Australia, Vietnam, and others are continuing to close ranks against China, South Korea remains a ‘floating voter’. While it clearly relies upon the US for its defence against an unfathomable North Korea, it remains ambivalent about a US-led ‘contain China’ strategy at the core of which is Japanese rearmament.
South Korean President Park Geun-hye is on record as saying that there is a “lack of trust” between Seoul and Tokyo because of Japan’s perceived lack of true contrition over its militaristic past. Diplomatic sources in Seoul say that Park believes that Japan under Abe is “lurching dangerously to the right”, and that Washington has effectively given this process the green light.
One of the reasons for this is seen to be the US’s budgetary constraints, a point that Obama’s cancelled trip to Asia last week highlighted further. On the other hand, diplomatic sources say that the US is frustrated by Seoul’s “excessive fixation” with the past when faced with the present dangers of Chinese expansionism. This is a division that China is working hard to exploit.
As we said, it has been an important week in Asia, not because either side has made decisive gains (they haven’t despite the US’s ‘own goal’), but because no one has been able to ease the growing tensions. JdeC.