China finds few believers in South East Asia
During 2010 there was a perceptible increase in international concerns about the conduct and direction of Chinese foreign policy. Beijing appeared to be moving away from the famous Deng Xiaoping dictum that China’s policy should be to “hide one’s capacity and bide one’s time” (which is itself not an overly comforting precept). More recently, as we discussed in our 25 May issue, China seemed to be making a concerted effort to re-establish its benign and good-neighbourly image. But, as we reported last week, continued assertiveness in the South China Sea is undermining this effort. Last week’s Shangri-La Asian Security Summit in Singapore provided a timely opportunity to assess evolving regional views on China’s rise, particularly as for the first time in its 10-year history the meeting was attended by China’s defence minister, General Liang Guanglie.
As would be expected, the public statements of all participants - including defence ministers from the US, Japan, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Australia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Singapore, and Britain - were diplomatic and generally optimistic. But the underlying message, for those who were listening carefully, was more nuanced, and General Guanglie must have come away with the correct impression that the key players in the region are unconvinced by China’s repeated assertions that it eschews hegemony. The second impression that Guanglie will have carried back to Beijing is that China’s Asian neighbours will continue to strengthen their own defence capabilities and not just rely upon the United States.
Guanglie told the summit that China “unswervingly follows the path of peaceful development”, and, more specifically, that it “unswervingly adopts the policy of forging friendly and good-neighbourly relations”. He added that China opposes any action that could lead to regional turbulence or “compromise mutual trust between neighbours”.
The problem for Guanglie, however, is that China’s recent actions do not chime well with these protestations. Since January this year, the Philippines says that it has identified at least six intrusions by China into Philippine-controlled areas of the Spratlys, or Kalayaan Island Group. The latest intrusion was on 21 and 24 May near the Ami Douglas Bank, where a Chinese maritime survey ship and another vessel were sighted. Earlier, in March, a Philippines department of energy exploration vessel was reportedly harassed by two Chinese patrol boats near Reed Bank. And in May two jet fighters (thought to be but not definitely identified as Chinese) buzzed two Philippines air force planes in the same area.
The Philippines has also been seeking Chinese clarification over reports that it plans to install a giant oil rig in disputed waters in the South China Sea in July. And on 26 May, there was a serious incident involving Chinese survey ships and a Vietnamese survey vessel within Vietnam’s exclusive economic zone.
There were no overt challenges to Guanglie’s assertions of peaceful intent, but little of what he heard will have been to his liking. The subliminal messages were clear: we are suspicious of China’s intentions and we are hedging our bets accordingly. And the message from US Secretary of Defence Robert Gates was hardly subliminal at all. He said that America would stick by its allies in the region, and he said that the US was working to counter anti-access and area-denial capabilities that were building up.
Without actually mentioning China, Gates said that there was a prospect that “new and disruptive technologies and weapons” could be employed to deny US forces access to key sea routes and lines of communication. He then said: “The US Navy and Air Force have been concerned about anti-access and area-denial scenarios for some time. These two military services are working together to develop a new concept of operations - called Air-Sea Battle – to ensure America’s military will continue to be able to deploy, move, and strike over great distances in defence of our allies and vital interests.”
It was also interesting to see Gates reiterating in detail the size of the military force the US was able to deploy at short notice to support Japan after the 11 March earthquake. It was a boast that would appear to have been intended equally for Chinese ears and for America’s allies in the region. He said: “At the peak of these closely coordinated joint relief efforts, the United States had more than 24,000 personnel, 190 aircraft, and 24 ships supporting Japan’s response...This effort demonstrated the high-level of interoperability between the US and Japanese defence forces and served to validate years of investments by both nations in combined training and capabilities.”
Interestingly, Japan’s Minister of Defence Toshima Kitazawa also felt bold enough to use the post-earthquake relief operation to send an equally pointed message. He said that the earthquake relief operation illustrated that Japan had “moved beyond the idea of ensuring military deterrence through the simple existence of a defence force” and that it had “proclaimed the concept of achieving national security through actual defence activities”. He pointed out that Japan has established a joint command centre and mobilized a force of more than 100,000 personnel, and he said that the success of the operation proved that the creation of a “dynamic defence force” was a move “in the right direction”.
The only real support that China received was from Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, who prefaced his remarks with an attack on Nato actions in Libya, which he said was an example of an alarming increase in “the disproportionate use of military force”. Ivanov stressed the closeness of Russia’s ties with China and he commended to all last September’s joint Russia-China initiative on security cooperation for the Asia-Pacific region which, he said, was intended to help the countries of the region enhance their security while “abandoning attempts to strengthen one’s security at the expense of others”.
Away from the main conference hall, the private discussions were of a similar tenor, and the overwhelming impression was of the key powers of Japan, South Korea, the US, India, and Australia looking for a collective response to China’s rise, to the evident relief (in varying degrees) of most of the members of Asean, particularly the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Singapore. This dynamic was well summed up by former South Korean presidential adviser Dr Lee Chung-min who was quoted by the South China Morning Post as saying: “China’s basically pushing us all closer...It is too big to contain, yet somehow we at times have to act to constrain China...It’s about understanding , support, and leverage.” JdeC.