Daily Times

During his recent China visit, US Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel reportedly got an earful from his Chinese counterpart and others on his country’s perceived meddling in regional affairs. While maintaining necessary courtesies during such visits, his Chinese hosts did not hold off from saying their piece. China’s Minister of Defence, Chang Wanquan, said that Beijing was prepared to use its military if needed to safeguard its territory, referring to China’s sovereignty disputes with Japan over a cluster of rocks in the East China Sea and with the Philippines in the South China Sea. Both are the US’s security allies. He cautioned the US to “stay vigilant” against Japan’s actions and “not be permissive and supportive” of Tokyo.

Beijing was unhappy that, while in Japan just before his China visit, Hagel had described Beijing’s promulgation of its air defence identification zone over the East China Sea as provocative and unilateral. The vice-chairman of China’s Military Commission personally told Hagel that China was “dissatisfied” with his remarks in Japan. Despite China’s dissatisfaction with his remarks, Hagel repeated and elaborated the US’s position as he told his Chinese hosts, “Every nation has a right to establish an air defence zone but not a right to do it unilaterally with no collaboration, no consultation.” He added, “That adds to tensions, misunderstandings and could eventually add to, and eventually get to, dangerous conflict.” This is the real fear in the Asia-Pacific, with a spark lighting a prairie fire.

China’s Defence Minister Chang complained about the Philippines, with which Beijing is having problems over the ownership of some islands and reefs in the South China Sea. Chinese naval vessels are deployed to block that country’s access and supply of provisions to its personnel. Chang told Hagel emphatically: “We will make no compromise, no concession, no trading, not even a tiny…violation is allowed.” In a sense China is cautioning as well as challenging the US to keep out of its disputes with regional neighbours. The US position is that while it does not take sides on sovereignty issues, it will defend Japan and the Philippines, as they are its security allies. And on China’s air-identification zone in the East China Sea, like Japan, the US does not recognise it, leaving it to Beijing to enforce it. Fortunately, China is in no hurry to force the issue, satisfied for the time being with its unilateral declaration.

The view in Beijing is that the US is stirring up trouble in the South and East China Sea to contain China. Otherwise, in its view, the US has no business to be in the Asia-Pacific region militarily. This was the tenor of a question from one of the officers at the National Defence University during Hagel’s speech to senior military officers, putting it to Hagel that, “You [the US] are using such issues [maritime disputes] to make trouble to hamper [China’s] development”, fearing that someday “China will be too big a challenge for the United States to cope with”. Hagel, of course, denied this but he maintained, “We have mutual defence treaties with each of those two [Japan and the Philippines] countries” and “we are fully committed to those treaty obligations”.

At a recent seminar in New York, China’s Ambassador Cui Tiankai spoke of the need for the US to move away from “outdated alliances”. He warned, “If your mission there [in the region] is to contain some other country [China], then you are back in the Cold War.” He said, “Trying to create an Asian NATO…will serve nobody’s interest.” With such understanding of the US’s motives, China is determined to further develop its military capability to back up its regional claims, which it justifies based on old maps from an earlier era before the time of nation states. And in this era of nation states, China’s neighbours contest its position to make their own claims. In this climate, any scope for a diplomatic solution is minimal, if any. China’s defence minister has told Hagel that it will make no compromises or concessions. In other words, China is telling the US to stay out of it all, and let China sort it out with its neighbours. The US is equally emphatic that it will stand by its allies and blames China for regional tensions. As Admiral Harry Harris, Commander of the US Pacific Fleet reportedly said in Canberra, China’s “aggressive” military growth and unfounded territorial claims were stoking a “witches brew” for a naval stand-off between the US and China.

Another complication between China and the US is over North Korea’s nuclear ambitions. Both countries broadly agree that North Korea should not have nuclear weapons but there is some disagreement on how best to do it. Washington is of the view that China is in the best position to bring this about by putting pressure on Pyongyang. The argument goes that since North Korea is hugely dependent on China as its economic lifeline, Beijing has the necessary leverage to bring about the desired result. However, there are good reasons from China’s viewpoint to avoid any extreme course. First, it will destabilise the regime in North Korea and, possibly, bring about the downfall of the Kim dynasty. That might not be disastrous if China had some clear alternative for a regime change. That does not seem to be the case because, despite North Korea’s heavy dependence on China, Beijing’s political leverage in that country seems limited. And if China cannot be sure of managing the change of regime if it were attempted, it would create instability and chaos in North Korea right on China’s border, as well as result in a flood of refugees from North Korea.

If, on the other hand, the resultant chaos were to bring about a regime change favourable to the US and South Korea, it would have the effect of bringing the US’s influence and the US-South Korea alliance right to China’s border. In other words, however much China might share with the US the broad objective of denuclearisation of North Korea, it is not crazy about creating a geopolitical situation that might endanger its strategic interests. During his speech at the National Defence University, Hagel however cautioned China that its continuing support of the Pyongyang regime “will only hurt China’s international standing” and its position in the region.

The problem though, is that all the emerging issues in the region are so interconnected with an ongoing struggle for regional supremacy between China and the US that it is becoming increasingly difficult to untangle them and sort them out. In the process, the Asia-Pacific region is becoming a dangerous flashpoint, even though both countries seem keen to manage the situation peacefully. Chuck Hagel’s visit was an attempt in that direction, though its outcome remains inconclusive.

The writer is a senior journalist and academic
based in Sydney, Australia. He can be reached
at sushilpseth@yahoo.co.au