Relations between the United States and China seem to be acquiring a new dynamism and a strategic dimension that have not been witnessed in recent times.
in SingaporeCHINA'S equation with the United States seems to be acquiring a new strategic dimension. In a symbolic move, Chinese authorities announced in Beijing on February 12 that `Blue Ridge', the command ship of the U.S. Navy's Seventh Fleet, would visit the Shanghai port for five days from February 24. While this has, in a sense, signified the U.S.' recognition of China as a rising power in the Asia Pacific theatre, the overall bilateral engagement between the two countries has implications on a global scale.
The United States' growing concern about the nuclear weapons `programme' of North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea, or DPRK), the consequences of the occupation of Iraq, and the revelations of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction with Pakistan as the centre, are making China's centrality to the changing U.S. strategic calculus more obvious. Relevant to this emerging scenario is the global presence of China as Asia's only veto-empowered member in the United Nations Security Council.
Prominent issues between the two countries include Washington's stand on Taiwan and Hong Kong, the `human rights situation' in China and Beijing's attitude towards the new U.S. drive for a "strategic dialogue" on issues of global trade. Therefore it came as a surprise when U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick said in Singapore on February 14 that his talks in Beijing a day earlier had shown that "the U.S. and Chinese positions overlap, quite well actually, in terms of their overall [trading] interests". Evidently, despite Beijing's undisguised self-identification as a developing country, the U.S. finds China, or at least tends to see it, as an increasingly compatible trade negotiator in the multilateral sphere. The Chinese Vice-Minister of Commerce, Yu Guangzhou, kept the concerns of developing countries in areas such as agriculture in focus but expressed appreciation for "the U.S.' efforts... in some sectors for resuming the [stalled] talks" on global trade.
Within the broad framework of the current Sino-American engagement, bilateral defence-related consultations have come into sharp focus, notwithstanding the fact that Washington's `take' on the political dynamics in Taiwan at any given time will remain the key determinant of the fundamental state of relations between the U.S. and China.
While announcing the impending visit of the U.S. warship to Shanghai, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said: "We are happy with the constant development of military and state relations between our two countries." She outlined the possibility of a greater diversification of Sino-American military contacts in 2004. This would be exemplified by "high-level visits, contacts between academies, mechanical contacts... and visits of warships as well".
Even more significant is the "positive and constructive" sixth round of Sino-American defence consultations, which concluded in Beijing on February 11 after two days of talks. The political ambience in which the consultations took place was defined by the momentum generated by the high-profile visit to Beijing by Richard Myers, Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, in January.
The process of periodic defence consultations was begun in 1997 following an accord between the then Presidents of the U.S. and China, Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin. The accord signalled a mutual recognition of each other's strategic compulsions in the post-Cold War period and marked a new phase of warmth in the relations which had plummeted in the wake of the Tinanmen Square incident. With Clinton's visit to China in 1998, the notion of some form of a Sino-American strategic partnership on major international issues, albeit in realpolitik terms, was beginning to gain currency in limited circles. However, the U.S.' bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in May 1999 produced shock waves that were felt across the Sino-American political-strategic spectrum. The bilateral ties were back on a relatively normal track by the time Clinton left office in early January 2001. But the defence relations nose-dived after a U.S. naval plane and a Chinese fighter jet collided over the South China Sea in April 2001. By October 2002, when Jiang Zemin met U.S. President George W. Bush at his Crawford ranch, Sino-American engagement had acquired the kind of dynamism that rekindled hopes of a strategic dialogue.
Hu Jintao, who succeeded Jiang Zemin as the General Secretary of the governing Communist Party of China in November 2002 and as the President of the country in March 2003, met Bush twice on the sidelines of two different international conferences. A new high point on the bilateral front was reached on December 9 last year when Bush made a China-friendly comment on the Taiwan issue in the presence of Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao. Bush called upon the Taiwanese leader, Chen Shui-bian, and Beijing to refrain from making any moves that might lead to a change in the status quo.
The timing and context of Bush's comment, coming as it did after the Taiwanese leader announced plans to hold a referendum on the territory's future in March this year, pleased Beijing. The U.S.' ability to rein in Taiwan, a territory which mainland China wants to be reunified with it in the light of `historical realities', is now being gradually put to test. It remains to be seen whether a plebiscite will be held in Taiwan on the issue of a perceived security `threat' from China. Such a public vote, Chen Shui-bian feels, will reaffirm the status of Taiwan as an entity that is independent of China, notwithstanding the `one-China principle' that the international community, including the U.S., has vowed to adhere to.
For China, the immediate political issue is whether the U.S. can indeed stop Taiwan from progressing on the path of `independence'. According to Patrick Tyler, who studied how six American Presidents up to Clinton had engaged China, "throughout the period in which six Presidents have come to know and to understand the People's Republic [of China], the [American] instinct for compromise has prevailed over the instinct to confront or isolate China". Whether the U.S. will act in a similar fashion with regard to Chinese expectations of some form of American pressure over Taiwan remains to be seen. Chen Dongxiao, a Chinese specialist on Sino-American relations, saw the U.S. as less than a "predatory hegemon" in the early phase of the post-Cold War period. However, according to him, "America's exceptionalist hegemonic instincts are not abating in the new century" and Washington's "political imagination has not really adjusted to an unfolding multipolar system".
Authoritative Chinese sources told this correspondent that Bush does not seem to have given any definitive anti-China thrust to his moves in 2003 to fashion "non-NATO alliances" with some countries in the Asia Pacific theatre. However, the extant U.S. plans for a theatre missile defence system in the Asia Pacific region, the distinctive issues of Taiwan and North Korea and the latest concerns raised by Washington on the issue of nuclear proliferation, will shape the course of Sino-American engagement in the short term.
With the U.S. identifying Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan as the virtual ring-leader of the `uncovered' mafia in nuclear arms proliferation, China may get sucked into a new Washington-led non-proliferation project. At the highest policy levels, China's permanent membership in the U.N. Security Council could afford the U.S. a chance to coopt Beijing into any new non-proliferation initiative. As far as `investigations' into instances of nuclear proliferation are concerned, according to observers, the U.S. may even seek to reopen old issues concerning suspected transfers by China of nuclear arms know-how, ballistic missiles or its components and related technology to Pakistan.
In the past, Beijing has always refuted American `intelligence evidence' regarding the alleged transfer of technology and equipment to Pakistan. Some Chinese entities were put under period specific U.S. `sanctions' too. Therefore there is a possibility that the U.S. might bring China under some renewed scrutiny in the specific context of the revelations regarding the activities of A.Q. Khan and his associates, it is speculated.... In this context it is relevant that in recent years, China has displayed a significant degree of diplomatic transparency in relation to publicising the legal and administrative measures that it has taken in the overall non-proliferation domain.
In fact, the view held in some sections of the U.S. policy establishment is that China can be considered as an important part of a potential solution, observers point out.
A key proliferation issue in China's neighbourhood is the nuclear weapons programme pursued by North Korea. North Korea has virtually acknowledged this fact by speaking frequently about its "nuclear deterrence" against the U.S. China, which hosted the first round of multilateral talks on the North Korean nuclear issue last year, has now prepared the ground for a fresh round in Beijing from February 25. The participants are the U.S., North Korea, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. The U.S. has publicly acknowledged China's positive contributions on the issue of proliferation vis--vis North Korea. It is against this background that Beijing tends to view Washington's plans for a theatre missile defence system in China's immediate neighbourhood as provocative. The Sino-American defence consultations cannot be divorced entirely from this dimension, although the official word on the latest round of talks is that besides the issue of military cooperation between China and the U.S. at the operational level (inclusive of maritime consultations), Taiwan and North Korea were also discussed.
China's interactions with the U.S. on the continued American occupation of Iraq and the resultant crisis will be a key factor in determining the future dynamics of the growing Sino-American engagement. China has not really done America's bidding in Iraq in a strategic sense. Beijing has, at the same time, expounded its policy of "constructive and cooperative relationship" with the U.S. in a manner that has kept Washington in good humour. The strategic bottom line is that the U.S. sees merit in not antagonising China at this point. According to diplomatic sources, the factors that are currently at play include China's leverage vis-a-vis North Korea and other anti-terror issues, and the huge Chinese market.
China has not been formally `banned' by the U.S. for reconstruction contracts in Iraq. However, one Chinese version is that a Shenzhen-based firm, Zhongxing Telecom Co., was recently awarded a $5-million contract in Iraq in the face of "some resistance on the part of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority". Whether it signifies growing competition between the sole superpower and a rising power remains to be seen.
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