Let the war games commence
The principal antagonists over control of the western Pacific Ocean – China and Russia on one side, the United States, Philippines, Australia, Japan and South Korea on the other – are due to hold almost simultaneous naval drills over the next month.
In what could become the largest drill ever held by China's People's Liberation Army Navy in the West Pacific, the Chinese North Sea fleet and the Russian Pacific Fleet are to hold joint naval maneuvers in the Sea of Japan and the Yellow Sea beginning in late April, running into May.
At almost the same time, 4,000 km to the south in the South China Sea, US and Filipino forces will stage their annual Balikatan drills as they have since 1991. For the first time ever, the militaries of Japan, South Korea and Australia are to be involved, with combat practice to be held at much more sensitive spots than in the past.
While both sets of maneuvers are fraught with symbolism, their significance differs greatly.
On Mar. 29, Chinese military spokesman Yang Yujun announced that China and Russia would hold joint maneuvers under the Shanghai Cooperation Organization framework. Russian and Chinese forces had previously trained together in 2005, 2007 and 2009 under the Shanghai pact, a multilateral body that also includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
The drills are expected to include 10-plus Russian warships led by a guided missile cruiser which will join a mixed Chinese fleet centered around a guided-missile destroyer. They will assemble at Vladivostok, the largest Russian port on the Pacific Ocean and home of the Russian Pacific Fleet, and conclude at Qingdao, the Chinese North Sea Fleet's headquarters, looking out to the Yellow Sea.
The Russian Navy announced that the exercises will focus on the joint testing of command-and-control, armament, support and protection systems, as well as combat systems' interoperability. Both surface and underwater exercises will be included. The maneuvers have been described as the largest ever held by the PLA navy in the West Pacific.
As Beijing and Moscow play up their “Strategic Partnership” in the North, the Balikatan exercises will be held from April 16 to 27, involving approximately 4,500 US personnel and 2,300 personnel from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). A so-far undisclosed number of members of foreign forces and 385 local health professionals will support various human and civic assistance activities. Balikatan is Tagalog for “Shouldering the Load Together.”
Combined planning, combat readiness and interoperability between the US Filipino forces usually stand at the center of the exercise, along with disaster response. What's new is that Japan's Self-Defense Forces will send two field-grade officials. The militaries of Australia and South Korea will be represented while Vietnam, Singapore and Malaysia are reportedly planning to join.
Intriguingly, the geographical focus of this year's combat drills has been shifted from the northern island of Luzon, the Philippines' main island, to Palawan in the South China Sea, nearer to the disputed Spratly islands, various parts of which are claimed Taiwan, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines – and all of it by China. The ocean floor is believed to contain huge deposits of oil and natural gas.
To avoid directly antagonizing China, Japanese officers won't get anywhere near the contested waters of the South China Sea. They will instead participate in a simulated disaster relief exercise premised on a major earthquake in Manila.
It is tempting to assume that the Sino-Russo naval maneuvers are meant to send a message by Beijing to counter US President Barack Obama's pivot toward Asia. After all, the first batch of US marines began their deployment in Australia on April 4, sparking serious concern in China over a supposed US strategy aimed at encircling it and hindering the country's rise toward becoming a global power.
But analysts agree that the maneuver carried out by the Chinese and Russians can hardly be taken as an aggressive counter-move against Balikatan.
“It would be more telling if Beijing and Moscow choose to present this as a specific parallel event or an unrelated event being held simultaneously by accident,” said Steve Tsang, director of the University of Nottingham's China Policy Institute, adding that it's still too early to expect such statements.
The Chinese and Russians, he said, aren't short of practical motives for joint naval maneuvers. Neither country is in a position to be overly picky with its sparring partners, he added.
“Since the PLA is unwilling to let the US or European navies to gain firsthand knowledge of their operational procedures and effectiveness, it really doesn’t have many choices for partners in major joint naval exercises apart from the Russians,” Tsang said. “The Russians are in a somewhat similar though less acute situation.”
Exercising together in a major blue water exercise makes sense for the Chinese because it sends a signal to the US and its allies that China is not alone and furthermore that its navy is no longer merely a coastal defense force.
“But the most powerful message being sent is that China and Russia are strategic partners willing and able to work together when and where desired by both sides,” Tsang said.
James Holmes, an associate professor at the US Naval War College, called the Sino-Russo naval maneuvers serious endeavors only from a purely tactical and operational standpoint.
“Both sides see value in exposure to friendly navies' tactics, techniques, and procedures, which furnishes lessons they can use to improve their own practices. So in a limited sense, they do 'really prepare to fight together,” Homes said.
He emphasized that the significance of the cooperation between Chinese and Russians pales considerably against what is about to go on in the Philippines where local forces together with their counterparts from up to seven other nations will close ranks to bring about Balikatan.
“Alliances work best when the allies have powerful interests in common, in particular when they face an imposing security threat; when ideological and cultural affinities bind them together; or when one of the partners can furnish incentives or use strong-arm tactics to induce lesser partners to join in,” Holmes said.
“But for what common strategic and political aims would Moscow and Beijing fight together? China and Russia have a common interest in looking defiant vis-à-vis the West, but that's a flimsy foundation for a serious military alliance.”
More pressing interests in Central Asia or the Russian Far East could stir trouble between Beijing and Moscow on short notice, Holmes said, noting that ideological kinship between the two countries has been weak at least since the Sino-Soviet split of the 1970s.
“There's more pulling the two countries apart than pushing them together. Juxtapose that against the Philippine exercises in order to see the disparity. These are powers that have pressing interests in common and have developed a culture of security cooperation over the course of decades. Such exercises have real political purposes and aim to achieve real operational results,” Holmes said. Asia Sentinel
‘No, thanks’.
That, in summary, is Hugh White’s response to the recent announcement that the US would be sending marines on permanent rotation to Darwin.
White is Professor of Strategic Studies at the ANU, one of Asia’s most distinguished strategists, and a former Australian deputy secretary of defence. And he has been making the case for strategic reorientation in Canberra for a couple of years now.
White is also a distinct minority among Australian strategists, and his comments have triggered fierce discussion in his country. Canberra’s decision to accept the US forces is for many a definitive rejection of his conclusions. But White and the debate he has unleashed deserve more attention, for this discussion is — or will be — taking place in capitals throughout the region, although there is little chance it will be as public or as sharp. Australia is the canary in the Asian security coal mine.
The Debate
White starts from a simple premise: China is getting stronger and more powerful, and the basis of its growing strength and influence is economic dynamism. Australia’s Defence White Paper 2009 concludes, for example, that China will eclipse the US as the world’s largest economy around 2020. This newfound heft manifests in two dimensions.
First is the military modernisation and capability afforded by increasing national wealth. White also notes that with military modernisation has come diplomatic outreach to help consolidate the image of a county that wants to work with its neighbours (at least until 2010).
Second, and perhaps more significant, is the gravity created by the desire to tap the Chinese market. White notes: ‘a country that wants to benefit from China’s unique economic opportunities must … take careful account of China’s political and strategic interests’. Consistent with that, in my meetings, Chinese interlocutors remind us that the US should put relations with it above all other concerns, especially Taiwan.
The list of countries subject to the Chinese economy’s gravitational pull is long. China is Australia’s top trading partner, comprising 23.1 per cent of Australia’s total trade (a 27 per cent increase over 2010); it has invested A$11.8 billion in China and China has invested A$19.5 billion in Australia. And regionally, China invests in every US ally in Asia.
This sets up a competition between these nations’ economic and security interests. But as White correctly points out, ‘the real question is not about how we balance our ties with the US and China. It is about how we protect Australia’s interests in this strategic transformation. Those interests are reasonably clear. We want Asia to keep growing strongly and for Australia to be part of that growth. And we want America to stay engaged in Asia, to prevent domination by China but not in a way that forces us to choose between them, or inhibits Asia’s economic growth’. White even argues that China’s rise does not mean the end of the alliance: ‘A new order can be built in Asia that accommodates Chinese power peacefully and preserves a vital role forAmerica, including a strong US–Australia alliance’.
White is not choosing Beijing over Washington, as many have accused. He is conscious of the pressures in China — a strong self-image, a desire to maximise its independence, a powerful nationalism — that push Beijing to fight the subordination of its growing power to US primacy. It is this inclination that threatens the stability that made Asia’s prosperity possible. White believes that ‘continued US primacy would be the best outcome for Australia, but the chances of it being achieved in the face of China’s power and ambitions are low’. That demands a focus on the second-best outcome, a ‘Concert of Asia’ in which the US voluntarily relinquishes primacy to share power with China — a nation that ‘has a legitimate leadership role to play in Asia’ — and other major powers in collective leadership based on the principles of the United Nations Charter. White calls this a US choice between influence and order.
There are two ways to challenge White’s argument: question his premises or question his conclusion. Opponents do both.
Those who take the first course argue China’s rise is not inevitable, its trajectory will change and its influence will be checked. Even if it is not, Beijing’s capacity to upset the regional order requires allies: a revanchist China cannot act alone. Some analysts assert that a US-led hierarchy will continue to be the first choice of regional governments who will try to preserve US primacy rather than back Chinese efforts to dilute it. Others argue the US may yet recover and remain ahead of potential peer competitors.
The second group argues that White’s recommendation is wrong. Rather than forging a new order that embraces China, they believe that Australia — along with other nations — should double down on efforts to balance Beijing. Australia’s Strategic Edge in 2030, a report by Australian think tank the Kokoda Foundation, endorses that approach, calling for diplomatic and military measures to strengthen Canberra’s capacity to respond to a more assertive and potentially hostile China.
The Response
Make no mistake: Canberra has chosen the second approach. Of course it seeks to engage China, as do all regional governments. But Canberra’s commitments to Washington were made clear during President Obama’s recent visit to Australia. And as described by Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard before a joint session of Congress, Australia is ‘[a]n ally for the sixty years past and Australia is an ally for all the years to come’. While there is no sign of a shift in Australian thinking, it is worth noting that Gillard has called for a new white paper, Australia in the Asian Century. This whole-of-government analysis, drawing on external advice as well, will explore a strategic environment where Australia ‘hasn’t been’ before.
Even if he has not prevailed, Hugh White has made a clear and plain case for strategic reorientation. This debate needs to be had and heard. In recent conversations throughout the region, I have heard echoes of this discussion but they were invariably less focused, coherent and articulate. Governments and publics throughout the region are facing a new world and they must understand the choices they face. The canary is not dead, but it is clearly uncomfortable.
Author: Brad Glosserman, CSIS, Washington DC
Brad Glosserman is Executive Director at the Pacific Forum, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC. A longer version of this article was first published here on CSIS. East Asia Forum
Decision stuns US, the front-runner because of its intensive efforts to woo India's defense establishment
India used to be a proud leader of the old Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), standing notionally between the US and Soviet blocs, but always tilting towards Moscow.
It is therefore both apt and heartening to hear today reports that the government is taking a truly NAM-style route on an $11bn contract for fighter jets by rejecting bids from both America's Lockheed Martin F-16s and Boeing F-18s and Russia's MiG-35s.
This is a diplomatically brave decision that most observers never expected after India signed its nuclear power deal with the US in 2008. Numerous US officials from President Barack Obama downwards have lobbied hard for the $11bn multi-role combat aircraft (MRCA) contract, indicating that it was expected as a nuclear thank-you.
What seemed most likely therefore was that Lockheed or Boeing would be included – even though, as India knows, its supplies are unreliable – until the end of the process. Then the US would not give up until it had driven other bidders out of the contest.
The US offerings however did not match up to required standards during flight testing – nor did the MiGs. The F-18 failed tests in the cold and high Himalayas of Ladakh, and the F-16, flown by Pakistan, is long in the tooth. The Griffin fighter from Saab of Sweden has also been rejected.
The contest is now between Typhoon jets (above) from the four-nation EADS Eurofighter consortium (Germany, Spain, UK and Italy) and Rafale from Dassault of France. India's MoD is believed to have been impressed with the Typhoon, while the IAF has strong links with Dassault, whose Mirage fighters have been successfully in service in India since the early 1980s and are now being upgraded.
Rejection of the US companies therefore shows a degree of sophisticated detached decision-making from the Ministry of Defence's minister, A.K.Antony. Together with his senior acquisition officials, he seems determined to clear a logjam of pending defence contracts, and to do so in a way that shows rare integrity in a country that has become internationally infamous for widespread corruption. The "clean" record of Antony, and of at least some of his top officials, is important because there are bound to be allegations of corruption, especially since there was a scandal in the early 1980s over the Mirage deal.
Curiously the US ambassador to India, Timothy Roemer, chose today to announce his resignation – "for personal, professional and family considerations". That is being widely interpreted as a reaction to the loss of the MRCA contract, as well as the failure of the India-US nuclear deal to generate increased defence co-operation between the two countries, plus nuclear power plant contracts for US companies.
However, I am told that Roemer's resignation has been expected for some weeks because, as a senior Democratic politician, he is returning to the US to work on Obama's re-election campaign. If that is so, it was surely silly to announce the departure today.
Billion $ sops
In any case the defence industry expects sops to be announced for the US very soon, notably a $5bn order for ten Boeing C-17 heavy-lift transport aircraft with an additional order for a further six aircraft, both being placed through the negotiated government-to-government foreign military sales (FMS) route without competitive tenders. Lockheed is also expected to receive further negotiated orders for its C-130J Hercules transport aircraft, six of which are already contracted. Russia might be disappointed that its MiGs have been rejected, but it already has substantial orders for current and future jet fighters.
Despite the personal and political angle for his departure, Roemer cannot have helped America's cause when he was reported recently by WikiLeaks saying the India's aerospace industry was "two to three decades behind the US and other western countries", adding that Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL), the government's aircraft manufacturing company, was "untested and suspect" as a partner for advanced aircraft. All that is true but it must have upset HAL and the defence establishment.
However, to come back to my main point, the decisions do show an unexpected independence from US influence that had not been expected when the nuclear deal was struck. It has not been a good year so far for India with all the current corruption scandals, but this indicates that, in international diplomacy, it is keeping the US firmly in its place.
John Elliott for Asia Sentinel
Sunset for South Korea's Sunshine Policy
The Obama administration of the US and the Lee Myung-bak government of South Korea alike have strategically distanced themselves from engaging with North Korea. As a result, North Korea stands at one of the most dangerous intersections in history, witness the torpedo attack that sank the gunboat Cheonan and the shelling of Yeonpyeong Island.
By placing the regime on a strikingly different path from what the previous administrations – the Bush and Clinton and Kim Dae-jung governments – had pursued, Washington and Seoul are seemingly seeking to push the regime to the point of collapse.
While North Korea's nuclear tests in 2006 and 2009 obviously served as an excuse to prompt a radical rethinking about the goal of the denuclearization on the Korean peninsula, liberal pundits in favor of negotiations with the North assert that the conservative Lee government is, figuratively speaking, seeking to break the camel's back. Policymakers in the US and South Korea appear to have agreed between them that any economic engagement with Pyongyang eventually would only serve to prolong the life of the Stalinist regime, with its increasingly powerful nuclear arsenal.
But they didn't know that the box they were thinking outside of needed fixing. They mistakenly regarded the Sunshine Policy, formulated by the late President Kim Dae-jung, who won the Nobel Prize for Peace with it, as a failed legacy. The path they chose, which does not appear to include a coherent policy, proved that it was no way to resolve the fundamental problems of the North's denuclearization, let alone regime change via collapse, a big seller in the minds of decision-makers in Seoul and Washington.
The fact is, however, that the Sunshine policy produced considerable political contact between the two including two summit meetings in Pyongyang that ultimately resulted in several high-profile business ventures, and brought about highly emotional meetings between families who had been separated for decades by the onset of the Korean War in 1950.
Nonetheless, the Obama administration appears to favor the value of alliances between Washington and Seoul rather than direct contact with North Korea. By standing with the hawkish South, the Obama administration has become a valued partner of the right-wing government of President Lee. As always, the US was more a source of comfort in South Korea than elsewhere.
Having more often than not been dubious about Kim Dae-Jung landmark policy negotiation policy, President Lee has aggressively challenged the realistic values and unrevealed authenticity of the 'unsightly' sunshine policy. It's not because he didn't believe that it was the optimal strategy but because he believed that it implacably wrecked any chance at a normal relationship between the two Koreas. The former mayor of Seoul does not now feel the necessity of inter-Korean dialogue unless the North expresses its deepest sincerity over the recent provocations. Instead he likes to portray the desperate situation of North Korea as being totally beyond repair, reform, or improvement.
Lee's tough attitudes toward the North have not been choreographed well. A novice in both inter-Korean and foreign affairs, Lee was given fluctuating instructions as to where to breathe, pause, gesticulate, pick up his pace, lower or raise his voice. His pointy-headed policy aides on the North also emerged as skeptics in the real sense of the word. They started saying boldly that the disputed sunshine policy was focused on buying off the Kim families with a weighty past and a wobbly future rather than the absolute number of people in poverty and disease.
They joked that the engagement policy paradoxically widened the economic gap between the Kims' cohorts and their hardscrabble people, eventually slowing the collapse of the hopeless regime. From the perspective of today, it seems to go without saying that the fruits of the sunshine policy helped to minimize the economic sufferings in the wake of a series of the UN's rounds of sanctions over the North's refusal to abandon its nuclear weapons programs.
Withholding the carrots must look like a smart strategy to Lee and his supporters, who think it's appropriate that Seoul deflated the overpriced engagement policy. They claim that it was the sunshine policy that ruined the growing relationship between the two Koreas, as if the much-debated policy were a major source of obfuscating the denuclearization of the North.
Tolerance is thus treated as a kind of forbidden word to those who work in the Lee government. The phrase 'sunshine policy' is now virtually absent from official documents within the government. I know why. As the sunshine policy's biggest opponents, Lee and his strategists made their own judgment that the Kim regime could be driven to negotiating over its military provocations. It's because the foreign currency-strapped North is in desperate need of economic assistance from the South.
The repeal of the sunshine policy was no doubt painful to the North and energized to some extent the South's conservative base. The Lee government is, however, unaware of the fact that old wounds do not heal overnight. Over the past few decades, liberal and moderate North Korea-watchers and analysts have assumed that the engagement policies were premised on the assumption that the North would shift its focus from isolation to reform and openness in rationally calculating and maximizing its national interests.
Inevitably, the North's denuclearization should be made in the course of a combination of tough talks and cooperation other than military coercion and economic sanctions, as long as a stable North Korea is in China's best interests.
Unlike the much-ballyhooed 'collapse scenarios,' the sunshine engagement policy is neither a messianic idea nor a page-turner. Even though the policy became a politically obstreperous issue, it is, in this observer's view, a clear-cut piece of evidence in common people's beliefs about the reconciliation between the South and North Koreas.
No policies are perfect. So probably they need to be renewed in a more elaborate manner. Diplomacy is a hard process of seeking a better policy through a long and difficult journey of negotiations. Seoul and Washington need to out-excel the ossified sunshine policy, not drop it. They need to feel more responsibilities for shaping the half-baked policy of yesterday into a far better one that everyone can agreeably accept. That is the easiest way to win the denuclearization of the dangerous regime
By Lee Byong-Chul Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace and Cooperation in Seoul. Asia Sentinel
BEIJING – The U.S. and Chinese defense chiefs took a step Monday toward mending frayed relations between their powerful militaries, though China warned ties could be cut again if Washington does not heed Beijing's wishes.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chinese Defense Minister Liang Guanglie, after a morning of talks, agreed to set up a working group to explore a more formal, regular dialogue on strategic issues.
The agreement, along with Gates' visit, marks the symbolic end to a rocky year in which Beijing cut off defense ties with the United States over arms sales to Taiwan, the democratic island China claims, and objected to U.S. naval maneuvers in the Yellow Sea. Gates also invited the chief of the People's Liberation Army's general staff to visit Washington in the first half of this year.
"I come away from these meetings convinced that the PLA leadership is as committed to fulfilling the mandate of our two presidents as I am," Gates said at a news briefing.
But the step forward on strategic talks falls short of insulating the militaries' ties from further ruptures. Liang, who is a PLA general, refused to guarantee that Beijing would refrain from suspending military ties in the future, especially if there are future arms sales to Taiwan.
Such arms sales "severely damage China's core interests," Liang told reporters after the talks. The U.S., he said, needs to pay more attention to what China wants.
Gates' four-day trip to Beijing comes a week before Chinese President Hu Jintao goes to Washington, and both governments are trying to smooth over substantial friction over trade, North Korea's and Iran's nuclear programs and China's generally more assertive diplomatic posture.
A rapid build-up of the Chinese military has fueled perceptions of aggression, unnerved China's neighbors and caused Washington to insist Beijing more clearly explain its intentions.
China has made strides in building a new stealth fighter jet, and Washington is also concerned about a new ballistic missile that could theoretically explode a U.S. aircraft carrier nearly 2,000 miles (3,200 kilometers) out to sea. China has also apparently beaten U.S. estimates to develop that weapon.
Gates told reporters traveling with him to Asia on Sunday that China had the potential to "put some of our capabilities at risk."
"We have to pay attention to them. We have to respond appropriately with our own programs," Gates said.
At their news conference Monday, Gates and Liang denied their governments are entering an arms race. Liang, dressed in his military uniform, animatedly defended China's growing capabilities, calling them "entirely appropriate and consistent with China's rise as an economic and political power."
While both sides try to pave the way for a successful Hu-Obama summit, economics and politics also are aggravating strains between the world's superpower and the fast-rising new power.
Chinese trade data released Monday showed exports swelling nearly 18 percent in December and more than 30 percent for all 2010, though surging imports narrowed China's overall trade surplus. The still-high surplus is likely to add to pressure on the Obama administration to penalize Beijing for trade and currency policies that some economists and U.S. lawmakers call unfair.
A defense spending authorization signed by Obama on Friday wades into the fair-trade battle. The act effectively prohibits the Defense Department from buying solar panels made in China, a leading supplier, by requiring the Pentagon to purchase panels made in the United States or from countries that have joined an international trade agreement that Beijing has not signed.
The spending measure also orders Gates to come up with a plan to ensure secure U.S. access to critical elements known as rare earths that are crucial to some weaponry and other high-technology products. China is the world's biggest supplier but has restrained exports, citing environmental degradation from mining. Critics contend Beijing wants to drive up prices and demonstrate its control over vital commodities. AP
Do not let the festive mood of "zhong qiu jie" - the mid-autumn festival in Beijing - fool you. Throughout last week's holidays, officials at Chaoyangmen - the offices of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - worked around the clock following the body language and every word of the Asean and US leaders before, during and after their second meeting in New York on September 24. Beijing wanted to know whether they were ganging up against the Middle Kingdom or not.
The joint statement released after Friday's summit between President Barack Obama and Asean leaders was rather comprehensive and a positive one, demonstrating both sides' paramount goodwill, without antagonising their friends and alliance. It contains two clear messages.
First of all, from now on Asean and the US are strategic partners in principles and policies. This represents a great-leap-forward commitment, given the condescending view Washington used to have towards the grouping and its stands on global issues.
This collaborative effort, which still has a long way to go, will have far reaching consequences in shaping the future strategic landscape in Asia. To accomplish this task, an eminent persons' group will be set up to prepare a five-year action plan (2011-15) by the end of next year when they meet again in Indonesia.
Secondly, the Asean-US strategic partnership is not aimed at China but for peace and stability in the region. It avoided the mentioning of the problem in the South China Sea and the US positions made in Hanoi in July. The earlier draft proposed by the US,specifying the dispute and ways to resolve it, was eventually suppressed at the Asean leaders' request. Kudos should go to them for their strong resistance and solidarity in warding off pressure from the US side.
It was replaced by a more general statement of intention (paragraph 18) which reaffirms the importance of unimpeded commerce, freedom of navigation and relevant international laws including the peaceful settlement of disputes. To foreign policy analysts, this self-explanatory paragraph does not need any elaboration as it automatically refers to the South China Sea and an existing code of conduct promoted by Asean.
After the draft joint statement was leaked to the US media ahead of the New York meeting, China's diplomatic mechanism went into full operation. Beijing issued a directive to its embassies based in all Asean countries urging their host countries to reject the US prepared document, otherwise it would have dire consequences for their ties. For the Chinese side, the mere naming of the conflict, which it argues has nothing to do with the US, is tantamount to an attempt to internationalise this sensitive issue.
At least for the time being, the Asean leaders have been wise to heed China's concern with seriousness. Likewise, the US also plays along. After all, it has succeeded in raising the profile of the South China Sea and the importance of Asean-US strategic relations. Given the current effort by the US and China to work out their delicate relations over currency and other economic issues, insisting on the maritime dispute would render destructive impacts on the world's most important bilateral relations.
Throughout its Asean chair, Vietnam has been instrumental in discussing the issue in discreet ways, knowing full-well any displayed enthusiasm would raise China's eyebrows. Previous Asean chairs, Singapore and Thailand - both were non-claimants - avoided it altogether. It is interesting to note that even with Hanoi's extreme caution, the China-Vietnam relations have continued to take a beating. Although several top Vietnamese leaders have visited China this year to celebrate the 60th anniversary of their diplomatic relations, none of the top Chinese leaders has yet set foot on Vietnam.
For the past 15 years after the Mischief Reefs incident in March 1995, Asean and China have been quite successful in containing the conflicts as a mere bilateral matter. Then, exactly 64 days ago, the US entered the fray by commenting on the international aspect of the longstanding territorial conflict - freedom and safety of navigation. While this concern is not new, the timing and way the US expressed it is. By pinpointing its backing of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (2002) between Asean and China, Washington has indeed waved an international red flag - not to mention recent disputes China has ahd with Japan and South Korea.
Washington's dual decisions to sign the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation last July and to join the East Asia Summit recently have levelled out its strategic level playing field on par, if not greater, with the level of China's long-held preference. That explains why Beijing has reacted strongly the way it has. Despite the current cordial Asean-China ties, there is one dark spot - no progress made on joint cooperation related to the South China Sea.
Judging from the Asean leaders' performance, they think they have what it takes to invite major powers to play real-politic in their backyard. In the past four decades, Asean was happy to serve as a fulcrum for these players to exchange views and build up confidence. They like Asean because it is a non-threatening entity and causes no harm. Now, with the wind of change shifts to East Asia, Asean wants to increase its stake and become a player too - no longer a sitting duck - as in the Cold War. Shaping the future strategic environment affecting the region of these powers is their common objective.
As great powers, big and small, are fully imbedded inside the Asean structure and political culture, the frequently asked questions these days are: Can Asean handle all these players at once? Is Asean a key player or just a mere bystander? Will the US-China cooperation and competition undermine Asean solidarity? How can Asean escape being a tool of the US or China?
With Asean, China and the US engaged in triangular relations, it would be hard to predict the outcome. For instance, if Asean and China again fail to overcome their difference over the guidelines for their proposed conduct in the disputed sea in the near future, it could be attributed to the US factor. That would further harden positions of Asean and China. Beijing has already said its sovereignty in the South China Sea is unchallengeable as, like Taiwan, it is one of its core national interests.
In more ways than one, the outcome of the New York meeting could now provide a much need impetus for China and Asean to work closely to break the impasse and make some progress on this front.
Both sides must compromise and agree on the language acceptable to all so that the guidelines can move forward. Indeed, to divert external involvement in this dispute, the two sides will have to demonstrate their efficacy in preventing, containing and resolving together their common challenges in the region. The Nation, Bangkok
