Posted on 11/20/2002 5:54:31 AM PST by Enemy Of The State
The ominous subtext to US-China relations
By Stephen Blank
Since the end of the Cold War, pundits in Asia have anxiously read the tea leaves to find an emerging threat to American hegemony. Before September 11, one could easily have proclaimed that a new bipolarity or at least rivalry for control of Asia between China and America was the most likely outcome of developing trends in Asian international politics. The war on terrorism changed all that - at least temporarily.
But even though that war has forced China to improve its relationship with America, it is unlikely that this change represents much more than improved atmospherics. The shadow of this impending rivalry has not been totally suppressed. Indeed, it now appears to be lengthening. Recent events throughout East Asia show that China's rising economic power in the context of the stagnation of Japan's and Russia's economies has created opportunities for China that it is seizing with alacrity.
Two examples of the shadow cast by China's rising economic power are to be found in regard to developments in and around North Korea. Beijing's ire at not being consulted by Pyongyang before it announced the creation of a free economic zone in Sinujiu under the leadership of a shady Chinese businessman led the Chinese government to arrest him and essentially torpedo the program. North Korea had no choice but to swallow this insult and learn that in the future it had to coordinate its policies with China in advance.
At the same time, the two Koreas and Russia announced the beginning of construction of a railway network that would link a trans-Korean railway with the Trans-Siberian line and allow uninterrupted travel and shipping from Korea through Russia to European destinations. Announcing this project Russian, President Vladimir Putin proclaimed that it was essential to build this railway now for if Russia did not do so its friend and neighbor, China, had comparable plans to build such a link through China, bypassing Russia. Thus, the prospect of Chinese hegemony over North Korean development and the inter-continental land trade has already galvanized the thinking of Russian elites who are sensitive to every hint of Russia's potential marginalization in Asia. For if Russia loses this opportunity to influence the future of Asia's trade, its far east will remain a stricken region in desperate need of help from China.
Despite talk a year ago of a Sino-Russian alliance, we see here a frank assertion of economic-political rivalry and Russia's fears of China's rising economic power. But while Russia may be especially vulnerable given its profound economic weakness, the state with the most to lose in the immediate future from rising Chinese power is Japan. This dawning economic rivalry is occurring with particular force in Southeast Asia.
In the past few weeks China has signed both a free trade alliance with Southeast Asian states and an agreement over the Spratly Islands with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Apart from the fact that Chinese economic power is forcing individual Southeast Asian states into ever more stringent competition or even to get out of earlier markets because they cannot compete, these agreements signify China's ability to compel ASEAN and its members to accept economic and political outcomes that enhance Beijing's advantages at their interests' expense. It is highly unlikely that the agreement on free trade will lessen China's competitive superiority over many Southeast Asian states, or that the Spratly accord will lead to it desisting from "salami tactics" - taking the islands bit by bit. Equally important is that these agreements have forced Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi's government in Japan to offer its own version of a free trade treaty with Southeast Asian states to stave off the Chinese challenge and to regenerate Japan's stagnant economy. No longer does the Asian international economy resemble the Japanese model of the flying geese where Japan was the leading goose. Rather this menagerie increasingly resembles a struggle for supremacy between some tiger-like animals, conducted only partly in the open but no less brutal or consequential for that. Thus China, which controls the headwaters of the Mekong River, is already using its power to influence political outcomes in countries that depend on the river, like Laos and Cambodia.
Similar trends are visible in China's unremitting efforts to forge a relationship of Taiwanese economic dependency on the mainland. Offering investment opportunities to Taiwanese businesses and attempting to use those opportunities to co-opt Taiwanese businesspeople, coupled with increasing efforts to invest in Taiwan itself, highlight the latest phase of China's efforts to convert economic power into lasting strategic advantage. These are not the only places where such tactics are used either. In Russia proper, Chinese business communities have already attempted to influence local elections and we can also expect the demonstration of Chinese economic power in Central Asia, to match China's first ever projection of military power abroad under treaty as in the recent joint maneuvers with Kyrgyzstan.
China's burgeoning economic power also is increasingly translated into military power through its greatly increased military spending, efforts to develop a thoroughly competitive domestic arms industry, and a move to a high-tech base emphasizing space, information technology, missiles, and the like.
Although China's omnidirectional diplomacy continues and relations with Washington have improved, the trend toward bipolarity is reemerging, with China a much stronger and tougher economic and military player, even if it is still under most observers' radar screens. We can now see the shadow or outlines of the consequences of China's rising economic power being deployed or made manifest. More to the point, Asian governments can see it also, and this vision is already producing some uncomfortable adjustments to the new reality.
Even as the war on terrorism brings Washington and Beijing together it is likely that we will see more of this subterranean struggle going on. But ultimately the outcome of the present and forthcoming maneuvers on both sides may turn out to be at least as consequential as the war on terrorism if not more so. The already discernible bipolar contest between Washington and Beijing may not and need not end in violence, but even so it will not be pretty.
Professor Stephen Blank, Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, Carlisle Barracks (the views expressed do not represent those of the US Army, Defense Department or the US government.)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.