Will Southeast Asia take sides?<\/p>\n
Michael Richardson
\nThe Straits Times
\nAsia News Network
\nSingapore<\/p>\n
China has lately been ratcheting up the pressure on Taiwan
\nwhile telling Singapore and other Asia-Pacific countries in
\nunambiguous terms that it expects them to stick to its
\ninterpretation of the one-China policy.<\/p>\n
Beijing's assertiveness is a reminder that China's rise brings
\nchallenges as well as benefits. In the past few years, it has
\nbeen mainly the benefits that have been felt throughout the
\nwestern Pacific.<\/p>\n
China's supercharged economic expansion has stimulated trade,
\ninvestment and tourist flows that have boosted growth and created
\njobs -- from Japan and South Korea to Southeast Asia, Australia
\nand New Zealand. China, it seemed, had been tied into a web of
\nregional cooperation and order. When President Hu Jintao and
\nPremier Wen Jiabao took over the leadership of the Communist
\nParty and government in 2002 and last year, they espoused a
\nforeign policy with China's \"peaceful rise\" as its centrepiece.<\/p>\n
The economic and diplomatic benefits for the region from the
\nnew China were dazzling. They far outshone the darker side of
\nChina's emergence as a power with increasing political and
\nmilitary clout, as well as economic strength. But the heightened
\ntensions over Taiwan are starting to bring regional views of
\nChina back into more realistic perspective.<\/p>\n
Beijing's muscle-flexing is a reminder that China is an
\nirredentist power set on recovering territory it says was
\nunjustly taken when it was weak and subjugated by colonizers,
\namong them Western nations and Japan. These often repeated
\nterritorial claims by Beijing conflict with the rival claims of
\nmany of China's neighbors, from Japan to Southeast Asia. The
\nChinese claims encompass not just Taiwan but islands and vast
\nareas of surrounding waters and seabed in the East and South
\nChina Seas. They also stretch to Himalayan territory claimed by
\nIndia.<\/p>\n
Beijing insists that China can be united and whole only with
\nTaiwan included. Beijing's claims to sovereignty over the Senkaku
\nIslands in the East China Sea (disputed with Japan) and the
\nSpratly Islands in the South China Sea (disputed with Taiwan,
\nVietnam, the Philippines, Malaysia and Brunei) are equally
\nuncompromising.<\/p>\n
While President Hu and Premier Wen have taken over the party
\nand state leadership, former president Jiang Zemin has remained
\nthe military boss. It appeared that Hu and Wen wanted to give top
\npriority to resolving China's economic and social problems, not
\nmilitary modernization. To do so, they needed a friendly regional
\nenvironment and a stable relationship with Taiwan.<\/p>\n
Beijing insists that Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian and
\nothers on the island who seek independence are to blame for the
\ncurrent crisis. However, some foreign analysts say that a power
\nstruggle between the Hu and Jiang factions in Beijing is giving
\nrenewed prominence to reunification, soon rather than later and
\nby force if necessary.<\/p>\n
The United States' decision to press ahead with a big arms
\nsale for Taiwan to counter what the Bush administration says is a
\ngrowing Chinese military threat to the island is adding fuel to
\nthe fires of patriotic fervor on the mainland. Of course, this
\nstorm may pass or subside, as others have over Taiwan in recent
\nyears, when the protagonists accept that the costs of trying to
\nchange the uneasy status quo far outweigh any likely gains.<\/p>\n
But China's threats to use force to corral Taiwan must be
\ntaken seriously. The Chinese military is growing stronger and may
\nbe able within the next few years to launch a successful
\namphibious invasion of Taiwan or force it to capitulate with a
\nmissile attack or naval blockade.<\/p>\n
Contrary to the \"peaceful rise\" mantra, China has repeatedly
\nused force to defend or advance its interests in the past 60
\nyears. Its troops took over Tibet in 1950. A few years later,
\nthey fought on the side of the North Koreans against the U.S. in
\nthe Korean War. In 1962, they fought with India to take control
\nof a mountainous border zone in the Himalayas.<\/p>\n
China seized the Paracel Islands from Vietnam in 1974 and
\ninvaded and occupied parts of northern Vietnam for several months
\nin early 1979 as a reprisal after Hanoi sent its forces into
\nCambodia to topple the Khmer Rouge regime, which had ties to
\nBeijing. The Chinese and Vietnamese navies fought briefly in the
\nSpratlys in the South China Sea in 1988 in a battle in which
\nChina secured control of six cays.<\/p>\n
However, with the exception of Korea, these were all localized
\nconflicts that could be managed. They were never likely to lead
\nto a wider war. Taiwan is different. The U.S. is obliged by an
\nact of Congress to defend the island from Chinese attack, unless
\nthe Taiwanese authorities were to provoke Beijing by declaring
\nindependence. Even then, America might intervene on Taiwan's
\nside.<\/p>\n
The crisis Southeast Asia fears most would be one between
\nChina and the U.S. over Taiwan. The last thing that Southeast
\nAsian countries want is for regional stability to be disrupted
\nand economic growth undermined by a conflict in which they would
\nbe under intense pressure to choose sides between these two big
\npowers.<\/p>\n
The writer is a visiting senior research fellow at the
\nInstitute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore. This is a
\npersonal comment.<\/p>",
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