East Asia and the superpower

Beneath the apparent bonhomie in the relationship between the United States and various East Asian countries, especially China and Japan, lie the latter's distrust of the U.S. and resistance to its attempts to dominate the strategically important region.

in Singapore

JAPAN'S decision to accept the United States' request to send its troops for "non-combat duties" in Iraq and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) agreement to hold multilateral talks on its nuclear weapons programme may have given U.S. President George Walker Bush some cause for celebration on the East Asian front this time around. However, a reality check tells a different story.

The Pentagon's latest critical evaluation of China's military profile and Beijing's spirited, but dignified, rejoinder cannot be dismissed as routine diplomatic gamesmanship. The truth is that the latest U.S. assessment of China's military preparedness is part of a review process that Washington set for itself after the last major summit between the leaders of the two countries took place at Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, in October 2002. Now, while China and the U.S. do not find themselves on a collision course, the relations between Asia's political superpower and the sole global superpower will still be put to the litmus test.

The immediate context for such a test is indeed complex, even as the U.S.' profiling of the DPRK as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction is eventually discussed multilaterally, with both Washington and Beijing playing the role of prime interlocutors. The other element in this emerging context will be the manner in which the vast Asia-Pacific region comes to terms with Japan's move to spread its wings as a proactive military actor in Iraq, albeit in a "non-combat logistics role", under the auspices of the U.S., rather than waiting for a mandate from the United Nations. The Japan-China equation is as central to regional and global stability as U.S. activism as a "forward-deployed force" in the Asia Pacific region is.

With South Korea, the U.S. now finds itself on a sticky wicket, though diplomatic play with the country is yet considered possible. Washington has begun, only a few weeks ago, a time-consuming process of relocating the U.S. troops now positioned near the demilitarised zone on the South Korean side of the border with the DPRK. Some micro-level issues continue to buffet the U.S. equation with South Korea, especially the conduct of U.S. soldiers on South Korean soil.

However, a bigger headache for Washington will be the challenge of addressing (or, managing, from the U.S. standpoint) an obviously emotional ethnic kinship between the two Koreas, especially in the context of multilateral talks on the DPRK's nuclear posture. Besides the two Koreas, the multilateral format consists of the U.S., China, Japan and Russia as the other interlocutors.

Elsewhere in East Asia, the latest aborted mutiny by a small but determined band of soldiers and officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines has only served to remind the U.S.-friendly government in Manila of the potential for political instability in the country. Surely, Washington has, for over a decade now, done without its old military bases in the Philippines. Nonetheless, and despite the experience of having been shown the door over a decade ago, the U.S. has, in recent months, enhanced its military cooperation with the Philippines, under the overall banner of a Washington-led "global war on terrorism", in the specific context of Manila's "anti-terror" campaign against some Islamic separatists and radicals. In this sense, the bugle sounds of the mutiny in Manila must have come as no music to U.S. ears, even as the Philippines government may have heard them as a wake-up call.

The Bush administration's relationship with Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population, has also not stabilised, despite Jakarta's transparent efforts in recent months to address domestic terrorism that has international ramifications. While there is no outward animosity between Indonesia, also the most populous state in South-East Asia, and the U.S., the comfort level in their bilateral ties is not what Washington would like to have. The terrorist outrage in Bali in October 2002 and the explosion at a Jakarta hotel on August 5 are seen, in some form or other, as an assault on the interests of the U.S. and its allies.

Of all the subtle and brazen ties that Washington has developed with several key Asian countries on the Pacific Rim, those with China, Japan, South Korea, and Australia are of utmost consequence to the U.S. and the larger international community. The U.S.' Waterloo of the 1970s, Vietnam, falls within the confines of the Asia Pacific region. But this region is still a vast playground for the U.S.' geostrategic games and its importance to Washington seems magnified in the unfolding context of the messy U.S. occupation of Iraq.

It was, in one sense, in the Asia Pacific region that the U.S. `triumphed' in the Second World War nearly 58 years ago by bringing imperial Japan to its knees by dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. With a touch of historical irony, the U.S. now seeks to thwart the `nuclear ambitions' of the DPRK, which is located not far from the sites of the U.S.' `atomic shame'. Acknowledging that it possessed an atomic weapons `programme', Pyongyang has said that its efforts to develop "a nuclear deterrent force" are designed to meet the threats from the U.S. itself. These threats, as perceived by the DPRK, are also traceable to the updated attempt by Washington to rewrite the inconclusive outcome of the 1950-53 Korean War.

FOR the U.S., while Japan and South Korea are its `key allies' in the efforts to refashion the Asia Pacific political order, China is of far greater critical importance as a strategic interlocutor. In the idiom of power politics, China is Asia's only veto-empowered permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, while Russia, though its territory extends deep into northeastern Asia, is practically a European political power. Moreover, the U.S. not only recognises China as a rising global power but also seeks to clip its wings. It is this aspect that constitutes the central `plot' of the geopolitical drama of the U.S.' deep and abiding involvement in the Asia Pacific region.

The Sino-U.S. equation today is broadly governed, at the political level, by the outcome of the Crawford summit of October 2002 between Bush and the then Chinese President, Jiang Zemin. While the summit did not raise any new vistas of strategic partnership between the U.S. and China, the two countries decided to enter into a long-term security dialogue in the spirit of coexistence. Even as the second round of this dialogue was held in Beijing on July 28, Pentagon issued a high-handed value judgment in a report released on July 30 on "the military power of the People's Republic of China". The report noted: "Beijing is pursuing its long-term political goals of developing its comprehensive national power and ensuring a favourable `strategic configuration of power'... While seeing opportunity and benefit in interactions with the United States - primarily in terms of trade and technology - Beijing apparently believes that the United States poses a significant long-term challenge." This can be seen as the U.S.' normative view of modern-day China. However, the Pentagon's view of China's defence preparedness is even more sweepingly judgmental in scope.

The report notes: "In support of its overall national security objectives, China has embarked upon a force modernisation programme intended to diversify its options for use of force against potential targets such as Taiwan, South China Sea (where Beijing has disputes with some of its neighbours) and border defence, and to complicate United States intervention in a Taiwan conflict. Preparing for a potential conflict in the Taiwan Strait is the primary driver for China's military modernisation. While it professes a preference for resolving the Taiwan issue peacefully, Beijing is also seeking credible military options. Should China use force against Taiwan, its (Beijing's) primary goal likely would be to compel a quick negotiated solution on terms favourable to Beijing."

Claiming that "China's force modernisation programme is heavily reliant upon assistance from Russia and other states of the former Soviet Union", the Pentagon points out that "Beijing has greatly expanded its arsenal of increasingly accurate and lethal ballistic missiles and long-range strike aircraft that are ready for immediate application, should the PLA (the People's Liberation Army) be called upon to conduct war before its (Beijing's) modernisation aspirations are fully realised".

The tone and tenor of such an unbalanced view prompted Beijing to respond on August 1 by expressing "strong dissatisfaction" over and "resolute opposition" to the disparaging comments. Firmly, but also decently, Beijing affirmed its "indisputable right" to "safeguard state sovereignty and territorial integrity". The punch line was that the Pentagon had "repeatedly spread (the story of) the so-called missile threat posed by China's mainland against Taiwan" in order to "create (an) excuse" for Washington's sale of advanced weapons to Taiwan.

Apparently, there was nothing radically new in the measured Chinese opinion on the U.S. game plan. But, the status of Taiwan, which the U.S. has implicitly recognised since the 1970s as Beijing's entitlement under the `one-China policy', is a recurring irritant in Sino-American relations. Washington tends to look upon Taiwan in much the same strategic light as the former Soviet Union had seen Cuba's geopolitical relevance to its plans to checkmate the U.S. Some diplomats in the Asia Pacific region now tend to think that China too might be able to regard Cuba in a somewhat similar fashion, if only to confound the U.S. There is no hard evidence, though, that China itself really thinks in such definitive terms at this stage.

Two divergent aspects of the U.S. position on Taiwan, expressed either implicitly or openly, continue to determine Sino-U.S. strategic equations to this day. On February 21, 1972, the then U.S. President, Richard Nixon told China's Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing: "We know China doesn't threaten the territory of the United States; (and) I think you know the United States has no territorial designs on China." Mao Zedong replied that "neither do we threaten Japan or South Korea", which have remained Washington's allies to this day, beyond the timeline of the Cold War that had defined the political context of the historic Mao Zedong-Nixon meeting. In a follow-up gesture of realpolitik, not long after the meeting, Nixon ordered the withdrawal of nuclear-capable F-4 Phantom bomber units from Taiwan. In contrast and after a number of highs and lows in Sino-U.S. relations, Bush has more recently pledged that he would "do what it takes" to protect Taiwan.

It is this new U.S. commitment, which has not been rescinded so far, that today vitiates the overall climate for Sino-U.S. engagement on several issues, including China's participation in the World Trade Organisation as a relatively new member and the Sino-U.S. security dialogue itself that transcends incidents such as the collision between a U.S. spy plane and a Chinese jet fighter in April 2001. The "security dialogue on strategic issues" also subsumes China's "new security concept" of mutuality of interests and benefits in international relations.

Portraying Beijing's efforts as a responsible power, Xia Liping, a Chinese expert on international strategic studies, has linked the Taiwan issue to the U.S. plans to set up a theatre missile defence system (TMD) in the Asia Pacific region. In his view, while Beijing favours a peaceful reunification of Taiwan with the mainland, China's non-renunciation of the possible use of force to prevent Taiwanese independence would also act as the "guarantee" that the issue might actually be resolved without war. Hence, Liping said, any move by the U.S. to "provide" Taiwan also the cover of the planned TMD would only encourage the "separatists" there.

The TMD issue and the global-scale plans of the U.S. to provide itself with a comprehensive missile defence shield are of relevance to Japan, which houses U.S. military bases and hosts several tens of thousands of U.S. troops. Tokyo, which participates in some research aspects of the missile issues, is also widely seen to face "missile defence dilemmas" of its own, in the specific context of the DPRK's perceived success in developing ballistic missiles. However, while maintaining that Tokyo would not exercise the "option" to make nuclear weapons now, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said in a recent interview to this correspondent that one of the guiding considerations behind this decision was her country's desire not to destabilise the international situation in any manner. Given the usage of the phrase "option" in this context, it is perhaps possible to argue that Japan has moved away, however marginally, from its initial post-imperial position of pacifism on the international stage. On balance, though, Japan still finds itself in a dilemma about its military profile.

The prediction of Ezra Vogel, Professor at the Harvard University, as far back as the 1980s, about the possibility of Pax Nipponica in the 21st century does continue to worry Japan's neighbours, though Tokyo itself has not so far signalled any era-heralding moves that could fuel such speculation. Japan's recent launch of spy satellites and similar plans for the future are certainly indicative of a desire to be somewhat autonomous of the U.S., given especially that countries like China know that outer space might well be the next frontier in international politics. However, Japan has also sent out a message to the U.S. by accommodating the latter's interests in occupied-Iraq. The Diet's adoption of a special measures Bill, in July, empowers Japan to send its troops for duties of humanitarian, re-constructive and security-stabilisation efforts in Iraq. But Japanese officials emphasise that these troops, as and when deployed under Tokyo's "independent" judgment, can act only in absolute self-defence.

Tokyo still has much pending business to do with Washington in updating the rules governing the activities of the U.S. troops in Japan and as regards a reduction of the U.S. strategic presence in Okinawa and other places. The more urgent issues on the U.S. agenda pertain to the DPRK nuclear question and the terrorism challenge faced by Indonesia. Although China is far more relevant to the DPRK issue than Japan, Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who has followed Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair into Iraq, has suggested that Japan as also Indonesia, among others including India, should be considered for permanent membership of the U.N. Security Council, albeit perhaps without the veto right. Will this reflect the realities of the Asia Pacific security matrix?